Tandem Vincitur

Yesterday, a friend stopped by the shop to visit. He has four sons and a daughter, all are high school age and above. These are smart kids; they work hard, they study hard and they make good friends. They were home schooled, for the most part.

He told me a story about his eldest son, who is in college and has befriended a Muslim. One day, his son and the friend  were visiting the multicultural center at the Muslim’s request. Of course, everyone in the center, working or visiting, is black. His son was the only white face to be seen.

While traveling on the elevator, the son and the Muslim were debating the presidential campaign and the son conceded McCain was the lesser of two evils. At that point, the elevator stopped and six burly black guys came aboard.

As the door closed, the Muslim asked the son, “So, you really think Obama is evil?”
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The mission was to meet a truck in Spokane, take some photos of the truck and the mining equipment it was hauling. The company wanted to get the photos on the website. Accustomed as I am to accepting time-consuming projects that promise adventure but lack any remuneration, I readily accepted the task. Besides, this was my kind of mission: big trucks and big equipment.

My son agreed to go with me on the premise I was buying breakfast when the mission was over. And, he also is a sucker for big equipment. I awoke early, drove to his house and we went from there together. We arrived in an industrial area where the truck was parked behind a commercial tire store, just as the sun was waking up the valley. You could hear the whistles and hammers in the steel yards and the sound of equipment, trucks and people. The freeway roared behind us and the smell of diesel was in the air.

The noise and the smells brought back memories of my childhood. Every summer, I would spend a week or two with my maternal grandparents. They owned an upholstery shop in the port of Tacoma and I would go to work with them. They made the seats for Bellboy and Sabre Craft boats in the sixties and seventies. Most the time, I would play in a room that was full of scrap wood and carts; riding on the carts and making things out of the wood. Some of the time, I would stand in the entry and watch the scrap-iron crane with its magnetic boom. There were barges and tugs and ships to watch, as well. The whistles, the equipment, the people, the noise, the smells - I cherished it all.
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This just in from Jackie Juntti: According to today’s Seattle P-I, a Republican fair booth worker was handing out fake three dollar bills with an image of Barak Hussein Obama wearing a turban and an inscription, “IBD14UOK” (I be de one for you, OK).

The reactions to this are a perfect sequel to my post yesterday, The Sin of Cain: Attitude or Action? Once again, the world is horrified if someone finds a little humor in the truth or something like it, at a public person’s expense. What is wrong with a little laugh -especially in politics? There used to be a saying, “If you can’t take the heat, get out of the kitchen.”

True to their politically correct form, the politicians reacted. “Snohomish County Republican Chairwoman Geri Modrell said she started making phone calls Tuesday morning as soon as she heard the bill was being distributed. And by the time she got down to the booth that afternoon, the bills had already been removed. ‘I sincerely apologize to the Democratic Party for any perceived offense - personally, I find it somewhat offensive myself,’ Modrell said.”

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During my travels, I have come across many amusing signs. Sometimes I get the photo and sometimes I miss. This photo was taken in Butte, MT. I have tried to understand what this means.

What is “local traffic”? Vehicles near the sign have the right-of-way over vehicles farther away? The area is populated with with motels and the sign is directly across from a truck stop. So the best I can figure is that local plated vehicles have the right-of-way over the out-of-state plated vehicles.

What do you think?