Thoughts from the ammo line

Ammo Grrrll returns with VISITING MY PEOPLE, a Six-Part Love Letter and Travelogue of Sorts. She writes:

My parents were celebrating their 70th wedding anniversary (Holy Moly, Rocky!), followed four days later, by my Mother’s 94th birthday. (More on these in Part Six. Hang in there with me!) It was time to leave Arizona for Minnesota. In March, the iffiest of months, weather-wise.

We have discussed my aversion to flying. And this was before an insane co-pilot locked the pilot out and dive-bombed into the Swiss Alps. I prefer to stay on the ground. But even more than the fear of flying is my absolute love affair with this country, which you cannot see from 30,000 feet any more than you can get to know a person from across the room.

Cities are fine and I have lived in or near them for much of my life. But it’s small-town heartland that I love the most. These are – as our Attorney General said – “my people.” Now, sadly, Mr. Holder was simply talking about people the same color as he, a shameful and racist thing for someone charged with upholding “blind” justice to say, even if he thought it.

So, early on a Sunday morning, off I went.

Before we begin: A tutorial on Passing. People, people, people! When you are fixin’ to pass, here’s what you do: put on your blinker, move briskly into the left-hand lane, and then use your accelerator (hint: it’s the one on the right…) to actually get PAST the car or truck and back into the right-hand lane. Hence, the name: passing. If you just pull parallel with the vehicle you are intending to pass and stay there for many, many miles, you have failed to execute the most important part of “passing.” You are not passing, you are annoying. The song notwithstanding, YOU may “love a parade,” but not everyone else shares your delight, particularly when 40 cars are tailgating at 80 mph waiting for you to pass.

One of the first things you learn when you spend time among actual “facts on the ground,” is that virtually everything the liberals say is a lie. Everything. A couple of examples.

Oh, Lord, can we all become any more nauseated and bored from hearing about our terrible systemic raaacism? I overnighted in Pecos, TX, in what turned out to be a very expensive “budget” motel because the town was filled with oil workers who had taken all the rooms and the hoteliers were gouging like crazy, because, presumably, the oil companies were paying the bills. I went next door to eat supper and at table after table were ethnically-mixed groups of sturdy young roughnecks – white guys, black guys, Mexican guys, Indian guys – all joking and talking, eating enormous quantities and playing with their cellphones, phoning wives, or girlfriends. Where was the terrible “racism” that would prevent these non-whites from being hired in the first place, or prevent friendship groups from forming?

What to make of the two beautiful young Texas women – one black, one white – who just struck up a conversation with my friend and me in downtown Ft. Worth and delighted to hear us speak “Minnesotan” with the long “oh” in Minnesota? Or the Mexican couple from California who just talked and joked around with us at the Rest Area? Most people who are not liberals just see people and don’t obsess about race and color. They really don’t.

Secondly. If you hear the word “infrastructure,” be prepared for a web of lies that ends with somebody’s brother-in-law and Democrat donor getting a big fat contract to do something unnecessary and expensive. I traveled about 4500 miles on highways and byways, and something so small that Garmin just called it “Road,” and the much-maligned “infrastructure” in this country is in spectacular shape. The whole highway system is a bloomin’ miracle. God Bless Ike. Remember Shecky Obama yukkin’ it up over the lack of “shovel-ready” projects? What a card! Every word out of his mouth is shovel-ready.

I do love the fact that Philosophy Majors have been hired – at last! – to write copy for road signs. How else to explain the existential quality of “Dust Storms May Exist.” or “Zero Visibility Possible”? “Bridge Ices Before Road” is probably useful information, but at 78 degrees in Oklahoma, I just went ahead and took the chance. “Watch for Falling Rock” is less than helpful without the slightest hint of what to do if, while watching, you spot rock falling. There is no Falling Rock Escape Route. The signs warning people not to pick up hitchhikers because they may be escaped prisoners are also valuable, if somewhat depressing. But any country that needs a sign that says “Do Not Drive Into Smoke” may be doomed.