Politics, Ancient Persons, Ghosts and Sticky Bikes

First, it's been awhile, so a little politics, just to make sure we haven't lost track of various world/national problems, in roughly the order that they presently show up on CNN:

1. Special good wishes to our Muslim Scumbag brothers of all stripes, flavors, divisions, and sects:

2. And for the treasonous vipers at the New York Times and their hangers-on and followers:

3. Hillary. (That's gonna be one of those names like "Judas" and "Adolph" innit? Bet you find fewer "Hillarys" a century from now than you do "Benedict's".)

4. Police excessive force while thumping Negros, Beaners, and other miscreants:

5. And, speaking of Beaners, a little comment on Illegal Immigration:

6. A couple of quickies for that shitstain Dianne Feinstein and hapless toadie Sarah Brady:


7. And wrapping up imagery for today, last, but not least, there's this:

No, no poltical commentary there. I just like redheads. Nekkid redheads where possible, but I'll take what I can get.

-------Non Political Shite Follows------------

Hotter than the hinges of Hell out there. It's actually keeping me off my bike, which I would have not thought possible only a couple of days ago. In fact, yesterday I went out and about on a solo run, just dicking around. All day, it was like riding into a blast furnace.

I wandered around for several hours, finally fetching up on an old ghost town I'd never heard of up along the Red River. An abandoned school that was the New Thing in 1926 when it was built, ruins, and monuments, and unidentifiable rusted tools and equipment...and families of White Trash living in fall-down houses on the peripheries, although what they do for a living is a complete mystery since this is one of those "you can't get there from here" places. I suspect they'd not appreciate being called "ghosts" even though they live here, and in more ways than one the appellation would fit.

The only traffic on the 1 1/2 lane blacktop (which dead-ended into a dirt sorta-road) was a mid-twenties/early-thirties good-ol-boy who was driving back and forth in a sixties-era Chevy pickup with the bed full of screaming and hooting kids, ranging from about 3 up to about 12. They'd disappear up the road around a bend, and shortly reappear. Along about his third pass down the road, I finally figured out he was just entertaining the kids, not doing anything in particular. Probably as good a way as any to get a breeze on them, as air conditioning is probably a bit short up this way.

It was all very Grapes of Wrath, but the kids looked like they were having the time of their lives, albeit dangerous as hell. I sat in the shade of a tree near the church meeting place (an open-sided, tin roof operation) listening to the one bazillion cicadas in the trees, the moist heat like a blanket over everything, chugging a large bottle of water and cooling off a bit. The kids (and driver) all waved enthusiastically every time they went past. It would take about 60 seconds of inattention here to fall through the time warp and believe it was still the late 19th or early 20th Century.

This is one of those hidden little enclaves you run across now and again that has a "Tom Sawyer snagging a raft and paddling to Jackson Island" ambience -- kids break bones, get snakebit, spend days and nights hunting and fishing along the river, and (if they live) sooner or later becoming more-or-less adults, all of which goes a long way toward explaining why your average Texas White Trash is harder than a coffin nail.

Hell, that could have been me...my family's White Trash back as many generations as I can track. If my dad hadn't gone to work for an oil company that ran him (and the family) all over the west, I'd probably have been up there with MY pickup full of barefooted sprogs racing the other guy.

It took some effort to break free of the hypnotic summer slothfulness of the place...there was an overwhelming urge to just kick back, chew on a blade of grass, and say "yup" a lot while waiting with only mild curiosity to see who else came down the road to get trapped in the syrupy slow-time amber that permeated the very air. Finally, I found myself coming back up out of the river bottoms, back into the blowtorch of the open road.

I doodled around and wound up at a "T" intersection. Coming down a perpendicular leg of the "T" was a pickup dragging a small trailer behind it and being driven by an Ancient Person. On the trailer was a stand-up refrigerator with the Ancient Person's husband who, if anything, was more ancient yet. He was holding the refrigerator, keeping it from tipping over, completely oblivious to the fact that should the refrigerator shift 6 inches any direction, it would knock him into the road and, most likely crush him like a bug. However, she was (literally) only doing 5-10 MPH, and since you don't get to be an Ancient Person by getting squashed by kitchen appliances, I presume they had a handle on it.

At any rate, she absolutely did NOT want to hit the brakes (see "bug" and "squashed" above) so she didn't stop at the intersection. She smiled at me and tried to wave me out into the road in front of her, but I elected to just wait for her to get past. I figured there'd be less chance of a mistake happening if I just came up behind them and passed them nice and easy, which in fact is what I did. However, while waiting for her to go through the intersection, I had my feet down...only way to keep from tipping over when you're riding a bike, doncha know. When I went past them, I ran up through all the gears to about 65, then lifted my feet off the floorboards of the bike to the road pegs. Well, more accurately, I tried to. Apparently I had stepped in gum while waiting...no, it's not gum...WTF?

I pulled to the side to figure out why I was glued to my bike and discovered that while waiting for the Ancient Person Moving Company to get their load through the intersection, I had literally sunk into the asphalt. Not much, mind, probably only about an inch, but plenty to cover the bottoms of my boots and various parts of my bike with road tar. Did I mention it was hot? About 106-108 all day...hot enough to melt a road.....

Think I’ll wait till dark when the temp will drop into the mid 90’s and I’m less likely to disappear into a LaBrea pit, and go check out the new biker bar across the state line…it’s supposed to be The Shit.

Why so long between posts?

Look, when you can get “The Sopranos” writers to put out something more often than every couple of years (and, mind you they’re getting PAID a bazillion dollars to do it), then come whine at me.

Oh, fine, I’ll try to do better. Jeez. Whine, whine, whine. I don’t know why I put up with you people, I really don’t.

In Our Next Episode: Early Returns On The 2008 Elections.
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