Is there any possible way that anyone could NOT understand their message? What, they haven't called for impeachment and filibustered and threatened and insulted enough, maybe? If the image of John 'effin Kerry calling for a filibuster on the Alito vote, from a bloody resort town in Switzerland doesn't get the message across, what will?
Connected to that, remember the Dixie Chics and the crapstorm they pulled down on themselves? Thought you would. I wonder if it ever occurred to those geniuses that if they'd made their statements here in the U.S., before a local audience, that the reaction wouldn't have been as bad? People would still have been pissed, but not the way they were by these twits waiting until they were in a foreign country with a presumably sympathetic audience to mouth off. 'Course, then they got to pose naked on a magazine cover and whine about how they were having their freedom of speech abused, so maybe they really didn't care.
Og is a lucky man. He doesn't just have back trouble, he gets a chance to be hurt in a more interesting way while having it worked on.
He's got a post up on his Dad, and how he misses him. Reading it made me think of mine. I'm lucky, both parents still kicking and showing signs of continuing to do so for a good while. I'll read something like this, and think- again- of just how damned easy I've had it compared to him. Grew up in a small town in southeast OK with his sister(she's still around, too). Woodburning stove in the kitchen which was his job to light winter mornings before he did his chores(and if he hadn't cut and prepared the wood the night before, he had to do it now), chores, clean up and breakfast, then school. Then afternoon chores and a job when he got older. You wanted to go somewhere you walked or- if lucky and had one- rode a bicycle or maybe caught a ride from someone with a car or truck who was going the right way. He's worked damn hard all his life, and earned every bit of whatever he & mom have. Yeah, I've had some nasty crap over the years; what really pisses me off when I think about it is how, when I actually did have it so much better in so many ways, I didn't take advantage of the chances I had. Sometimes it brings up the hope that someday your kids don't come up with something like "Just how did you mess up so bad?" or something. Overall they've turned out well, but it's hard to compare some of what I've done and not done with his life and not feel I've really messed up in some ways.
In any case, he & Mom are still around, and we can still talk and work on things, and for this I'm damn glad.
Speaking of tool boxes, which Og and others have been, I've almost always had some tools in the vehicle. For quite a while it was a small metal box, about 5x5x12". I'd wire-brushed it and painted it to get rid of the rust, and had some loose wrenches, pliers, screwdrivers, a roll of electrical tape and a battery terminal cleaner. This last item in particular came in very handy over time, sometimes for myself and sometimes for others. When second child was on the way we had my Ford Courier pickup for transport, and needed bigger. Guy we knew had a Pinto station wagon in the driveway that wasn't running be which he swore would run, and offered to swap it for some help with yardwork around his house. Trade done. He towed it to our house, I got it running, and it mostly kept up for about two years(worth a post all its' own). The one thing it kept doing was, for some reason, the battery cables would crud up just enough that you'd come out, turn the key, and it wouldn't start. Out came the box and ten minutes later you're moving.
Fast forward some years. I was divorced, we were both in better vehicles, and I only put the box in the truck when I was taking a trip. Until one day on the way to work I stopped at the store, and when I came out it wouldn't start. I'd come back from out of state two days before and the box was, happily, still in, and it was dirty posts, so I made it to work on time. From that day, there has always been a toolbox in the vehicle. Now it's one of the low, arch-top ones about 15" long by 8" wide by 4" high. Right now I'm not going outside to dig through it, but as I recall it contains:
pair of Vise Grips
wire cutters
electrical tape
mixed cable ties
screwdriver with multiple bits
shorty screwdriver with reversible phillips/straight bit
tire valve tool
spark plug gapper
12" thin-wall steel pipe for extra leverage
battery terminal cleaner
pocket knife
roll of flux-core solder(just got left in there)
set of standard and metric combination wrenches.
And yes, it's stuffed. Right next to it is a flat box containing a 3/8" ratchet, 1/4" ratchet and a mix of standard and metric sockets, most on socket holders with a few small ones loose. You know, the odd sizes that on rare occasions are the only damn things that fit? And fitted in under them is a four-way lug wrench.
Crap, lest I forget, a set of hex keys. So far the only time I've actually needed these was at the range, when it turned out that none of the bits in my screwdriver set fit the lockscrew on my M1 front sight. Very glad to have them.
Not nearly as complete as what a lot of folks carry, but it's taken care of a lot of problems over time, my own and relatives and folks I've found broken down for some minor thing. Sometimes I have to take something out of the truck box to use, but it goes right back in there. Which is why when a guy in the Wal-Mart parking lot couldn't get his battery out(buggered screws for the side-connecting battery) I had the Vise Grips that could get a grip on the head and break them loose.
You know what's also handy to have along? Paper towels. A roll of them. Don't leave home without. And baby wipes. Especially if there's a baby around, but even without.
I think I'm done for now
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