Affirmatio (af’-fir-ma’-ti-o): A general figure of emphasis that describes when one states something as though it had been in dispute or in answer to a question, though it has not been.
I had been living out in the boonies, on a rural road, with no neighbors, for 9 years. I had had my home built on 20 acres of former farmland, surrounded on 2 sides by woods. I planted apple trees, had a pool put in, and dug a fire pit way down in back where I’d sit and watch fireflies on warm summer nights. I was retired and had plenty to do—keeping busy, instead of sitting on my ass all day like a lot of retirees do.
I woke up that morning thinking about my chainsaw and how I needed to sharpen it’s chain, when I heard what sounded like heavy equipment working nearby. I went outside and saw a bulldozer flattening the surface of a rectangular section of the field adjacent to my property. I yelled “What’s up?” The guy operating the bulldozer yelled back “You’ve got a neighbor.” Damn! There was a tractor trailer parked by the road with “Old School Log Cabin Homes” painted by hand in huge red letters with “Wake Up America” in smaller letters below. I thought of burning down my house, collecting the insurance, and moving far away. But, my curiosity got the best of me. Two weeks later my new neighbor moved in. His name was Jubilee Johnson. He wore buckskins and two Colt revolvers. When I first saw him he yelled “Yeah. I’m a little crazy, so what?” I guessed he could read my mind. He asked me to help him put up yard sign. It was gigantic and said “I LOVE TUMP.” I didn’t try to correct him. I was afraid he might shoot me. He invited me in for a tour and a drink. His cabin was one room with a dirt floor, no electricity, parchment paper over the windows, a pump in the sink draining directly into the ground outside, a bear skin duvet, a wood stove, and assault rifles hanging on all the walls. We had a drink of his “home brew” that made my eyes water and ears ring for a couple of minutes. We had three drinks and Jubilee started crying. He told me to go home and I stumbled out the door.
My doorbell rang around 2.00 am. I opened my door and Jubilee was standing on the porch in a red union suit, barefoot, with a cowboy hat in his hand. He took a deep breath, stood up as tall as could, and said in a quiet voice: “I want to be a liberal again.”
How could this be? Again? He told me how he used to be a game show host for a quiz show called “Imperiled,” a spin off of “Jeopardy” that airs on “Truth General,” a new cable network founded by a cabal of cranks affiliated with “1950,” a survivalist group with roots in the Cold War Era. Jubilee told me how he was mind controlled by the show’s Key Grip, Milton Nixon, and lost his way. I invited him in and made us some Sleepy Time Tea. “Remember? This is what liberals drink.” I reminded him. He nodded his head, took a sip and spit it out. I said, “To get back to where you came from you must read Noam Chomsky, The Second Sex, Watership Down, and, Be Here Now, then, take 2 hits of LSD.” Jubilee was gone the next day. Two months later I received notice that he had deeded his property to me. I had his cabin demolished and planted his 20 acres in hemp.
Definition courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu).
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