America’s Treasure

There are homecomings. And then there are homecomings. I’ve watched my friend Neighbor Laura go through the gamut  of emotions when it comes her son Tim. When he graduated from college she was so proud. On the day he was commissioned an officer in the Army, she beamed. On the day he left for Germany, she waved him off and smiled. On the day he went to Afghanistan she cried.

But he’s home, if only for a little rest and relaxation. And we all were excited and and we all cried.

As we welcomed him home, one thing kept going through my mind.

This is truly America’s treasure. Truly.

These bright handsome young men can be said to fight for an administration, a policy or a even a country.

But they what they truly fight for is their fellow man.

Against the forces of evil.

It’s the bigness of it that got me.

And my heart hurt for him mama. Because I too have a son. And I would want him home and away from danger.

Welcome home Tim.

Politics IS Local

I just happen to be at the grocery store one day when I ran into my friend Nick who was bagging groceries. Since he’s a music teacher, I wondered if he had a change of vocation.

Anyway, I was just picking up some things (while dressed in my pajamas) and was curious. “What are you doing here?” I asked. “Bagging groceries for the handicapped. All of us who are running for county office are.” he says.

“Aha,” I say, “Do you want me to take some photos?”

“Would you? You’re the best. Do you have a card I can give to the other candidates?”

“No Nick, I’m just getting some milk…”

But coincidentally, I had my camera.

As some of you know by now, Nick is running for County Commissioner and he has our total support. I believe he would be a great public servant. His has a pragmatic platform and a vision for controlled growth. And he’s funny too.

I didn’t know any of the other candidates, like this lady. She was, however, great with the general public.

This lady was a favorite.

She bagged groceries, shook hands, and spoke to me about her philosophy on fiscal policy – all at the same time. Talk about multi-tasking. She asked me how I knew Nick and I told her that he was the boy’s guitar teacher and that I do his campaign photography. She was impressed he had his own personal photographer.

As she should be.

This lady is an incumbent, trying to keep her seat and of the same party as me, unlike my dear friend Nick…doesn’t make a difference what-so-ever.

This gentleman is running for sheriff against the incumbent who happens to have been in office eight years. I was very impressed by his concern for our community. He has some great specific ideas. I like that. I don’t respond well to  abstract and nebulous political promises. Call me skeptical. Sometimes people who have been in office a long time can lose regard of their own constituents, it’s human I guess.

I think I could possibly vote for him.

He said, “I didn’t know Nick had his own professional photographer.”

I said, “He doesn’t, he has me.”

Then they decided they all needed a group picture with the store manager so she can send it to her headquarters.

And I was just picking up some groceries…

Among The Great Unwashed

Since moving to this community six years ago, as I’m doing errands, I run into people I know all the time (hey, that’s two prepositional phrases in one sentences. I have a thing or two to say about that soon…) When I was new to this area, I would go to the store in my gym clothes or my pajamas (true) and not think a thing about it. It’s not a classy thing to do but I figured no one knew me anyway.

For the record, I don’t sleep in a house dress, it’s not that bad.

Over the years, things have changed a little bit, I now will see people when I’m out on many occasions. It’s nice, like I belong here now.

But then again…I can’t just roll out of bed and brush my teeth and run around and not expect to see a few people…

Last Saturday however, I reverted to my old ways…I went to work on Saturday expecting to see an empty building. Instead I see this group of guys. Chet says, “Hey Puna.”

“Hey Chet.”

“And hey Steve.”

“How are you doing Ronnie?”

 I just happen to be in my pajamas. But you know what? Half those men probably didn’t shower yet either.

Then I went to the grocery store to pick up a few things.

And I run into my county commissioner. I said, “Ms. Shaw, do you remember me from the RLW meetings?”

She said, “Ummmm…yes?”

Then she turned and left. I guess she didn’t want to hear any complaints about pot holes.

Or maybe I looked like I just rolled out of bed. Which I did.

Speaking of politics…it’s mid-term elections this year. Tomorrow…I’ll tell you who I’m voting for. Unless of course I don’t get around to it… I haven’t written it yet…What a blood sport politics is. Get ready to rumble…

Mr. Garrett Goes To Washington

 I thought a political post was appropro on this, the eve of the President’s State of the Union Address. Unless you have been hiding under a rock in the US of A, you will know that this is a political year, mid-term elections…the democratic process is at work…and there’s lots of pain to go around.

It seems odd that I would know so many people who are running for office. I used to be so oblivious and I voted absentee straight ticket for years. I never cared who was running for County Clerk. But now I know, and it happens to be the lady who used to own the farm where the girl attended riding camp when she was eight years old. She sat in front of me at a dinner a couple of months ago and declared her candidacy to me. Horses and public service, they go hand in hand.

And I also know this guy. His name is Nick. And he wants your vote!

Nick is the boy’s guitar teacher and someone with whom we have a long history. He started teaching the boy when he was nine years old. The fact that he still really can’t play has nothing to do with Nick…

Anyway, we started out with Nick at a music place where he used to work. Then he left the music place and we followed him to his lawn chair adorned living room where he continued to teach the boy.

Then he decided to start his own music academy and we donated a couch for one of his music rooms. Then he expanded his music academy to the building next door where he holds music seminars.

THEN he decided that he was going to run for County Commissioner. Look how he’s grown!

I followed along when he filed his election papers. We wanted a really good photo of him to put into the newspaper.

I took several of him walking.

And walking some more.

And then I made him get back in the elevator so I can get a photo of him coming out of the elevator.

Don’t let anyone tell you that politics is glamourous.

So I sent him a few photos to look at.

He didn’t like this one.

Or this one. Come on Nick!

Aha, the perfect one. Geez Nick.

Here’s one of him pretending to wave to the hords of admirers. Or in this case, the husband.

The husband just came from the gym so he wasn’t dressed for the occasion but I got a photo anyway.

Now hear me…Nick is a centrist, a visionary for smart growth in our community and a fiscal conservative. The fact that he’s running for the opposite party as mine gave me some pause but we support him anyway.

Besides, he’s a good guy.

Hosted by Cecily and ???

Shovel Ready

Warning….Warning….Warning….political post coming up. Remember, this is just my point of view and as I read on Cheerio Road, “the point is just you.” Karen Maezen Miller is quite the wordsmith. She’s a modern day Shakespearean housewife and author. Quite unlike myself, snort, snort. On that note, I write on.

A few days before I went home, Nanna told me there was work being done on the bridge down the street from their home and that we would have to take a detour. I was searching the far reaches of my mind…”what bridge? what bridge?”

I didn’t think much about it until we arrived in town and saw the detour sign. I said to the husband, “What bridge?”

It took a while but I realized that the bridge in question is the eight foot bridge that spanned a creek about a mere 15 yards from my parents’ home. It was more like a bump.

It was take apart and completely impassable. And the work would apparently take three months.

I will venture to guess that this project is part of the “Shovel Ready” projects that the last stimulus package was designed to fund projects like this in order to stimulate the economy. Well, it stimulated something alright.

The residents along the road were unprepared for the start of the work. So much so that they called a meeting with the state representative for the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation.

State geek/official, “We informed your township supervisors.”

Well, two of them were there, Superintendent Ozzie and Chairman Fred. They apparently looked at each other incredulously and slowly shook their heads before one of them said, “No you didn’t.”

State geek/official, “umm…blah…blah…blah…blah…well, we informed Lanesboro township (the adjacent township within whose jurisdiction the project lays).”

A resident asked, “When did you do that?”

State geek/official, “Yesterday.”

No provisions were made for trash pick-up, mail delivery, or emergency procedures. It was an amazing set of circumstances. The detour was eleven miles out of the way. Poppop now counts an extra 45 minutes of commuting time every day. No more just running out for milk…

Poppop claims he saw the structure after it was torn apart and that it was perfectly stable, no sign of corrosion on the beams and the concrete was not eroded at all.

So I ask, “There’s nothing else in Susquehanna that needed fixing?”

How about the part of main street that was partly washed away from a big flood a couple of years ago and is now caving in?

No matter what side of the political debate you are on, you would agree, the circumstances are incomprehensible-ible, flaggerbastable, waste-our-money-and-make-use-mad-ical. So I’m not a wordsmith. But I can get my point across.

The Chairman

Warning—-this is a political post. Actually, I think the next couple of days of content will be political. I’m not sure since I haven’t written them yet.

I said on my “How I Roll” page that I don’t know anyone in office. Well, as it turns out, I do.

Meet Fred. He is the Chairman of the governing body for Harmony Township in somewhere Pennsylvania. He is responsible for 500 constituents and 23 miles of dirt roads. We need someone like Fred to stare down some officials from PennDOT or the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation. More about that later.

Fred is married to Carol who is the sister to Gwen who is married to my Uncle Ed, who really isn’t my Uncle Ed. Uncle Ed and Gwen are good friends of my parents.

Okay, moving on.

Fred won his election by a very slim margin of votes, 14 – 11. The incumbent either forgot to vote for himself or didn’t realize that Fred was a force to be reckoned with so he just stayed home on election day. Not only did he forget to vote, but so did his wife and his mother. Which would have made it 14 – 14. There would have to at least be a run-off.

I do believe that he deserved to lose.

Here is Fred showing me the permit that he issued himself for the fireworks display scheduled for later on that night. Sorry Fred, no anonymity here, you’re on the world wide web now.

Of course we were not in his jurisdiction which renders the permit moot. Anyway, the cops may not know it if they did come.

Yippeee!!!!

By the way, in the next election, he can count my Uncle Walt and Aunt Annaliese for votes since they have now officially moved to Harmony Township from LonG Island. So even if the loser’s wife and mother both vote next time, Fred will still have him by two.

How many times in our democracy do we have to reiterate this? Every vote counts!

For in the Course of Human Events…

As one contemplates the vast achievement of humankind’s short stay in this universe, one can only be awed at the Mighty Hand who wrought such achievement. Yesterday, on the 40th anniversary of Apollo 11’s landing on the moon, the husband and the boy were glued to the television.

He husband asked me, “Do you remember the landing on the moon?”

I said, “No honey, I was two years old.”

Well, he did, and as a boy, the impression it made shaped his future. He knew right then that he wanted to be a pilot and astronaut. Well, he did become a pilot but he said an astronaut had to write too many reports.

I wonder, what event in our recent history could single-handedly impress on a generation of young children to achieve greatness in their lives?

The husband states that your iPhone (yours not mine, I don’t have one) has thousands of times more computing capability than the computer that ran the guidance system on Apollo 11. These fine brave men rode into space on a trajectory algorithm that was calculated on a slide rule. They were pioneers in the true sense. And their faith was grounded in the unproven assumption that they will get home again. Amazing.

The nation’s destiny was at that moment intertwined by a single rocketship and four men, Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, Michael Collins and Walter Cronkite. Walter Cronkite, the face and voice of the landing. May he rest in peace.

What do, smoke detectors, cell phones, memory foam, cordless drills, GPS systems and freeze-dried foods have in common? They are a direct results of NASA research.

So the husband asked to watch a special on the landing. I said, “But the Bachelorette is on.”

I hope my shallowness doesn’t reflect the majority of the thinking of this great nation. It’s the dreamers, the thinkers, the workers, the brave pioneers that make this nation work. And I relented to watch the special because I have that very same hope for the course of human events.

Tea With Two Pilots & An Insurance Agent

…so I’m talking to these guys when the husband goes and gets the car. Since I was sitting 12 inches away from them I heard every single word they said. I overheard them say that someone in their group was a pilot. He was getting a ribbing for using a straight edge to put the letters on his sign, you know, pilots are persnickety about details like that.

I asked if one of them was a pilot and as it turns out two of them were. One flew a news helicopter and the other flew a police helicopter…yes he was a policeman. He said that this was the first time that he was on the other end of a protest. The third guy was an insurance agent…he was the one who was teasing the other two.

They started to tell me all kinds of flying stories and well…I’m married to a pilot. Flying stories don’t fascinate me – yawn. After all, the husband comes home with a few every time. Last weekend he was struck by lightning – again. What I was more interested in was what they were doing there. What brought them there? It was their first protest, why would they come? Why would they take a day off of work and come downtown in the pouring cold rain, holding a sign of protest (nicely aligned at that). Why?

They also tell me they were accosted by someone before they got to the restaurant. “Who?” I say. The insurance agent answered “Some a..- ” and he caught himself before he finished. He was going to swear and he didn’t. He refrained himself. Why? (I’m a pretty curious type) Because I was a woman and a stranger and he was trying to be polite. Which brings me to the point of this post.

Our political discourse has reached the point of poison. No one can debate anything objectively, it always seems to degrade to personal attacks and insults. A prime example is the President’s press secretary. His arrogance drips with every defensive position and acrid comment about the opposition. I know how it feels when someone you support is attacked. I know because we all lived it with President Bush’s presidency. Every time someone called President Bush a liar, a murderer, dumb and stupid something inside of me would shrivel and scream and my little imaginary hands would go over my little imaginary ears. I believed that President Bush was a good man, an honorable man, doing the best he could for the country he loved. I found myself simmering with anger with the insults. I fear I may be the only one the country who feels this way, but I’m okay with that. So I’m not going to do that to President Obama. Don’t mistake this for support of his policies. If I supported them I wouldn’t be protesting out in the rain.

So that brings me back to the insurance agent. He was making his position known but he was being polite. He was speaking with me face to face. The internet offers so much anonymity that people feel they can say whatever they want without recrimination. And when there is, they wonder why. We should know that what we say and how we say it is more of a reflection on us than on “them”. Choose our words wisely whether we are speaking face to face or whether we are on the internet – blog, twitter, facebook – whatever.

They wanted to talk about flying and I kept bringing the conversation around to politics.

“We need to worry that once we monetize our currency inflation will occur.”
“Our national debt doubled in the last two months.”
“We say that past policies didn’t work but we continue to follow them.”
“Middle class families can’t afford another tax hike (hence the sign). Make the tax cuts permanent.”
“China owns us.”

Their discussion was earnest and respectful. An example to how we should all be in our political discourse.

First time protestors and gentlemen. I’m glad there are still some gentlemen around.

Tea For Two Thousand

This was the scene April 15, 2009 at the Navy stadium parking lot in Annapolis. It was raining sideways and the wind was blowing in big gusts. And I was wondering what I was doing there. I’m a fair weather protester.

However, there is something uplifting about watching all those other uncomplaining people walk from the stadium to downtown. This is a march on the state capital if I ever saw one. It was enough to make me forget about my wet feet, my wet pants, and my wet coat for a little while.

On  our way to the wharf in downtown, we was the object of several vicious insults hurled at us from passing cars. Protesters were protesting the protesters. We just chuckled at it, there’s nothing you can do really. You can’t take it personally. Most of the time I didn’t look up which probably explained why someone yelled, “Go back to Nazi Germany” to me. Now the husband is as white as you can get, but no one can mistaken me for a member of the Aryan Nation. It’s silly really.

Among the throngs of protesters was this lone happy supporter of President Obama. He just laughed and smiled the entire time. Why couldn’t the other anti-protest dissenters be more like him?

And when we got to the wharf, this is what we see, rows and rows of sopping wet bodies and umbrellas. People were motivated! Don’t let anyone tell you differently. I’m getting a small taste of the precious protected right of free speech.

Then I got hungry.

We ducked into the first restaurant we see, McGrevy’s Grill. It was gorgeous…it was such a nice surprise. A beautiful warm restaurant with warm coffee – right up my alley. I’ll tell you about it another time.

My heart was outside with the hearty. But my stomach was happy to be inside.

And inside were some guys who were there for exactly the same reason as we were. They sat next to us and we had a very interesting conversation which I’ll tell you about next week.

In the meantime I will tell you I had the most delicious hamburger with Roquefort cheese and bacon. Yum. It should have filled us up for the day except that I came home and made gyoza so I can show you how to make ponzu sauce. I can’t stop thinking about food even in the midst of a protest against out of control government spending.

I told you this was food week at Life Signatures.

Wordless Wednesday ~ This Is A Great Country

In some countries we would be jailed for being at a Tea Party. This is a great country. I know, I know, I heard all about the Department of Homeland Security memo. Our Constitution is stronger than that.

This isn’t exactly wordless…sorry all you moms out there.