Well, Spring has sprung and soon the weather will warm. The bees and flies will come out in search of their favorite foods. One likes flower nectar, and the other likes horse patooey. You never know what you’re going to learn from the flies and the bees. I am reminded of a conversation I had recently with an acquaintance. Actually, it was more of a disagreement than a conversation.

“I read it in the Times,” he said in a tone that told me he thought he’d nailed it.

“It used to be,” I informed him, “That you could go to the New York Times, The Washington Post, Newsweek, Walter Chronkite on the TV and several other news outlets and get some truth. That’s not happening anymore.”

“Oh,” he said, “Why’s that?”

“All of the above have been found out to have lied,” I said. “One lie begets another. Another problem is that a handful of people own most of the media.”

“What are you saying? I still get my news from a trusted source, _______. They tell the truth. I know what’s going on!”

“Yes, and a lot of the media has been connected to the CIA and other security agencies.” I thought I had him there, but he got away.

“That’s all bull. I’ve never seen anything about that in the news.”

“That’s why you’re watching the wrong news,” I said. I was confident I had him over a barrel.

“How can that be?” He was entirely perplexed.

“Have you noticed the number of investigative reporters, whistleblowers, and people about to testify in court or in Congress about government corruption that have had terrible accidents with cars blowing up and such while there seems to be a rash of suicides among them as well.” I was certain I had him.

“That’s all bunk,” he said. “Fake news. Some of them happened but they killed themselves because they said stuff that was supposed to make them rich and famous and it didn’t work out so they did themselves in.”

“How about the suicide who tied himself to a tree and hung himself then shot himself in the chest with a 12 gauge shotgun?”

“Sounds like a made-up story to me.”

By that time I was going crazy and had to get out of there. Outside the sun was shining, flowers were in bloom and bees were buzzing around them. Over by the road was a pile of horse patooey. One of the neighbors loves to ride her horse and apparently it came by while we talked.

I approached the horse patooey and saw that there were a lot of flies gathered there. Having a party, I expected.

“Hey, you flies,” I said, partly in jest, “Flowers taste better than horse patooey.”

None of the flies took any note of what I was saying. They just kept on dancing around on the horse patooey stopping every now and then to get a bite. I looked closer and I noticed there were no bees there. Well, I told myself, bees don’t like horse patooey. A second thought came to me as I stood there: “I don’t see any bees trying to convince any of the flies that flowers are better than horse patooey.”

Mother Nature has an answer for everything. I walked off to pick some flowers leaving my acquaintance in the living room watching CNN.