Two Bits

I’m driving a dark-green, stick-shift three-quarter ton Ford pickup with a cracked windshield and 96,000 and change on the odometer. I’m not sure that I am up to the honor. In fact, I’m not sure I’m up to the running board (or where the running board would be, if there were a running board). The reason it’s parked in my space is that it seems that my real car ran off to Montana, and, like many runaways, nearly came to a bad end. My understanding is that it was covered by three feet of snow, and you know how those fairy tales end.

I drive carefully. For one thing, this pickup doesn’t have any pick up. When I stop at a light, the whole thing shakes. I pop it into first, and it growls and sputters into the intersection. Bikes pass us. Joggers pass us.

But I’m ambitious, and I have a  plan… I’m going hunting – moose and elk, I think–and DoFlo’s truck is the perfect vehicle. My understanding is that it will make me one of THE PEOPLE. Maybe I can run for vice president.

I haven’t figured out all the details, but I know that I’m not much good with a bow, so I hope I can borrow a friend’s 30-06. Think I’ll do my hunting from the truck. So what if it’s not sporting? I’m not interested in sporting, I’m interested in eating (and politics). Maybe I can rig up some kind of swivel-mount on the hood for the rifle, and I guess it would be a good idea to put a winch on the back to make retrieval easier. Probably better load the bed with a couple of sandbags or a grizzly for ballast, too. With any luck the bear will eat the moose–he’s just for show, anyway–and I won’t have to try to find a way to make moose steaks palatable. (I’ll keep any stray elk I happen to pick up, though).

This is an ambitious program, so I’d better get on it if I expect to get my moose AND get any campaigning done in the next two months. I hope that all of you will vote for me. I’ve got a truck! I know how to hunt! I’ve got what it takes!

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Civilization 101

When everything works, it’s great. I live in a perfect cocoon, insulated from all of life’s little irritants – floods, for example. Under ordinary circumstances, I turn on the tap, and voila! Out it comes! I flush the toilet, and whoosh! No mess, no problem! That is, until the water main breaks…

5:45 – The alarm goes off, and I stagger to the bathroom. The toilet won’t flush. I check and see that there is hardly any water in the tank. There is water in the kitchen, but there isn’t much pressure. I’ll have to stop at the office on the way to work and ask what’s up. I find that it’s a bit of a challenge to brush my teeth without water, but it’s an even greater challenge to take a dry shower. Fortunately, I’m not too dirty.  

It’s 6:45 a.m., and the buzzer in my condo goes off. It can’t be anyone I know, but I answer it, and ask who is there. A man’s voice, blurred by static, says something I don’t catch, and I’ll be darned if I’ll let someone I don’t know into the building. We’ve had some break-ins in the storage units in the basements. A bit later, the buzzer goes off again. I can hear the buzzers for other units in the background. Can’t figure out what’s going on, but I don’t want to open the door. I live in a very safe area, but I’m not expecting anyone, and I don’t know who it could be. A couple of minutes later, there is a knock on my door. It’s ‘J’ in 101. ‘J’ Paul Revere says that there is a water main break and the basement garage is flooding. He is galloping from door to door, spreading the alarm. He says that if I have a car down there that I had better get it out.

I have more than a car down there. I have an enclosed storage unit filled with my worldly possessions. I’m still in my pjs, but I grab my keys, slip into my sandals, and rush down to the garage. Sure enough, there are about 18” of dirty water sloshing around the concrete pillars, miscellaneous household items, and cars. Fortunately, I’m wearing my plastic ‘go to the office’ shoes and my pajamas are above my knees. I wade to my car, which is the next to the last in the garage. (’How high’s the water, mama?’ Johnny Cash knows that it’s ‘two feet high and risin’.) I drive my trusty Subaru to safety and hope that the flood will have receded by the time I get home from work. I need to evaluate the damage. 

But wait! There’s more! It’s raining like crazy, and now I’ve got water coming in from above, too. I put a towel down to sop up the rain that’s seeping in over my sliding glass balcony door and go to work. The fact that a friend from out of state is coming in this afternoon doesn’t do a whole lot to improve my disposition. Most of the time Americans can ignore it, but really, nothing has changed since the beginning of time. Even today, the forces of nature are stronger than the strongest barriers we puny humans can erect against them.

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I support Obama, but anyone who has spent time in Africa, Asia, or South America knows that Phil Gramm’s recent comment is true – many Americans are whiners.. It would be political suicide for any politician to admit the truth of Gramm’s statement, but I sincerely hope that Obama knows better. I wish that a major figure would stand up and speak truth to power. A very large proportion of the people in this country are wimps. I see them every day, window rolled up, air conditioners on. “What do you mean, you’re not running the air conditioner in your car? Oh, whoops, I didn’t know you don’t have a car.”

Even most very poor people in this country have a TV, a refrigerator, a car, more than one bedroom, potable water, and medical care - things that would make them middle class, or even rich, in many countries. (How about not being able to afford a band aid?).Approximately 2,300 people per day enter the U.S. illegally, according to the Pew Hispanic Trust - although some estimates are much higher – and many more attempt to enter the EU. They come in cars fitted out as leaky boats, in airless shipping containers, and across deserts where temperatures can reach 110 degrees.

Am I one of the lucky ones? Isn’t it a shame that Americans are losing their jobs and their homes? Isn’t it terrible that Americans are losing their life savings? Of course. But let’s nor lose sight of the fact that many people living in the word today would jump at the chance to be in their shoes. In fact they are dying for the chance to be in their shoes. (During fiscal year 2007 from Oct. 1 to May 31, there were 95 deaths, according to the Sierra Vista Herald (http://www.svherald.com/articles/2008/06/26/news/doc4863345471f3f583291569.txt)

When my kids were in Africa a few years ago, there was a joke going around. It said, “If the slave ships were coming today, we’d be paying to get on.” The economic crisis notwithstanding, people feel the same way today.

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