Silly season, fake news and my Donald and Hillary whirligigs

How observing two garden ornaments in the lazy summertime lead our man Cormac MacConnell to realize a connection between it and the real Donald Trump's actions.

I know this is what is called the Silly Season in this strange trade of telling stories. The Silly Season has traditionally generated rafts of unusual stories, often filled with the guts of what they call fake news over on your side of the Atlantic today.

However, I swear that this sun drenched yarn, though it might be perceived by some as silly and light, is the total truth in every sentence and is based entirely on good reportage on my part over the last year and more. Make of it what ye wish.

To begin at the beginning, 18 months ago or thereabouts my gifted friend Denis Winters, who dwells amongst you but visits Ireland often, presented myself and Annet with a pair of wooden whirligigs for our garden fence. They were shaped like birds and finely crafted altogether. One was considerably larger than the other.

Both perched on metal spikes and flew merrily with their wooden wings when the winds of Clare blew. I mounted them on the fence while Denis and I discussed the political campaign then beginning to wage hotly across the United States.

After Denis had departed towards Cork, for whatever reason, I christened the most petite of the whirligigs as Hillary Clinton and the larger lad as Donald Trump. I think I mentioned their arrival in passing to all of you at the time. And I observed their flights about every day.

What happened after a few months was that poor Hillary began to wilt when the winds blew strongly. Several times she was blown off her perch altogether and into the neighbor’s garden.

I would rescue her and replace her on the fence but I got tired of doing that after too many failed attempts and eventually gifted her to the neighbor to do with her whatever she wished. And I have not seen her since on any fence.

The Donald whirligig, however, was never blown off the fence and seemed to have the capacity to cope with storms from any direction. At the time of his election to the White House, as I observed with a little awe, he nearly flew away altogether with excitement.

I also noted that he was most active in the early mornings, waking up with the blackbirds at the crack of dawn, whirling away, the wooden wings making a kind of tweety-tittery sound nearly as loud as that of the local pair of blackbirds and the three robins.

I kid ye not. He really ruled the roost.

Everything changes with the seasons both in gardens and in the White House. As your beloved president began to make his mark on the globe I, of course, continued to observe my whirligig image even more closely and intently.

I can accordingly report that my Trump image coped in a ferocious fashion with a green web of roses and honeysuckle twigs which sprang up around his perch. For months he continued to fly strongly on his perch with every wind that blew despite the efforts of the thorny rose sprouts to capture him.

It was a long time, I confess, before I made any connection between the behavior of my whirligig and the rapidly developing impact of the real Trump on the world headlines, all the way from the Korean Peninsula to Singapore.

I’m sorry about that and maybe any connection I make is fanciful and only fit for a Silly Season yarn but here, totally accurately, is the current status report for my presidential class of whirligig.

Today, in the June growing season, my Trump is still flying away strongly on the fence despite being almost enveloped by what you could call a crown of thorns and red roses and yellow honeysuckle flowers.

However, I had to look very closely to see that nowadays it is only the right wing of my bird which is functioning. The left wing has been effectively captured by the briars and, despite some movement in stronger winds from Lough Derg is just about out of action.

It is the right wing which my Trump image is flying upon, day after day, dawn after dawn, as your beloved president goes about the global affairs that matter so much to us all.

I was still hearing those tweety sounds at dawn, competing with the blackbirds, and had to very closely study the situation yesterday morning to discover those were emanating from the increasingly desperate efforts of the left wing to escape from the greenery.

I could see some significance between the image on my fence and global politics, but sure maybe this is truly a Silly Season yarn and I am totally cracked in the head altogether and generating fake news of a crazy, hazy nature.  If such is your opinion then please forgive me.

I checked a minute ago, truly, and the right wing is still going strong.