One year ago today: September 1, 2019, an inspiring touch.
Five years ago today: September 1, 2015, a less-than-accurate post.
Nine years ago today: September 1, 2011, I underestimate the Fed.
Random years ago today: September 1, 2004, the Mars happy face.
An entire day on the road, I’m back safe and sound. This was one of the longest driving times Nashville to Lakeland for me, a total of 14-1/2 hours on the road. I’ve made the trip in more hours, but that included side trips over two days. Dull as these reports are to some people, they are popular overall and blog feature that’s rated well over the years. Rather than give the hourly report, since nothing happened, I’ll list the day’s high points and let you decide. Pictures are random.
It was another pleasant morning drive, once more I took the longer route south from Cookeville. Better view, better drive, fewer semi-trailers, and this time I had an agenda. Back in March, I did not wait to pick up the police report. Turns out the paperwork is in a little town off the highway in that valley with the panoramic view. The GPS proved useless since official map names can vary from actual street signage. True to form, when I missed the turn and tried to double back, a solid string of cars came down that nothing nowhere road. Took me nine minutes waiting to turn around. How do they know?
The police station is so deep south, the only thing missing was the screen credits. Everybody knows everybody and the lady I needed wasn’t there and neither was her assistant and so on. I finally got into the office with some higher up wearing a custom-sewn uniform seated at a desk with an Armalite propped on the drawers and some 15 loaded magazines strewn about the waiting area. So much for computers replacing paperwork, the accident report was nine pages long. The most interesting two pages were the blank spaces that were not automatically back-filled with my information.
Rather than double back, I took the side road to the northern outskirts of Chattanooga. A lot of hairpin turns and slow traffic, it reminded me of East Glacier Pass in Idaho. Or is that Montana, I dunno, have not been on that exact road since 1976. Drove that in my first car, a 1974 Ford Maverick. Lots of déjà vu and talk about ideal motorcycle terrain. By the time I reached that stretch of road east of Chattanooga [a 20-mile obstacle course) that’s been under repair since 2017, I was hopelessly behind schedule.
I’ve also been checking the vitals on the car, since that fan belt replacement means either my water pump or alternator is next to go. Mountain roads are funny, the locals have no four-lane savvy. When there is a stretch they bunch up like goats and nobody can change lanes. My tactic for traffic jams is to crank on an audio book, and I have a nice one this time. The average production has that slowed down speech used in seminars and webinars to appeal to the not-so-fast types in the room, or maybe just to aggravate normal people. I’m listening to “The Collector” and it moves right along. Problem, my $19 CD player is giving out. Millennials, read my lips. By now, being the technology is decades old, a cheap plastic CD player should last virtually forever. But no, you gotta screw with that, too.
Atlanta Worship Choir.
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Since we took the Reb’s car to Memphis, my pre-Nashville fill-up took me all the way back south of Dalton, a default gasoline stop. The slight delays earlier means I hit Atlanta at ten after three. The onset of rush hour and a lot of wasted time. Other than burrowing under or bridging over that zero city, the only solution is to bulldoze a twenty lane freeway right through north to south and discuss the feelings of City Council afterward. The freeways are built without service lanes so any fender-bender means the tow-trucks get caught in the same traffic. And for the third or fourth time, I missed that by-pass turnoff near Macon. That leg of the trip, normally six hours, had already taken me eight.
Deciding to press on rather than stop even for coffee, I crossed the border into Florida just before dark. That’s when the Florida crazies get on the road. This is part of that radio dead zone where all you get is religion and politics. So I chose politics to discover I’ve missed another kind of big deal. Two actually, remember hours after the COVID mask and shutdown things, I pointed out that city mayors did not have the legal authority to make any of that happen. Six months later, other people around the country are starting to figure this out.
It seems the left and their political arm, the Democrats, have been slipping in the polls. People aren’t buying that nonsense that Trump is responsible for their riots because it happened on his watch. This is so preposterous that Trump, the cautious neophyte when it comes to political tactics, has switched over to the attack. He knows he’s got them on the run. TMOR, check out the addendum for details of what he’s up against.
Other than stopping to tank up, I carried on at 72 mph all the way to the Bushnell ramp. Strange how Florida has no direct east-west connecting roads where they would really help. Otherwise, I drove non-stop to my doorstep, arriving after midnight. Fortunately, I had stashed a six-pack of Ying-Ling in the fridge. Reb’s favorite or not, I brought back my wide neck acoustic. The major accomplishment of this visit was putting together my list of “comedy” country tunes. None of these have passed muster with my inner circle. That won’t change much as nobody I know is a country fan but I value their opinions.
ADDENDUM
Trump is up against a liberal-dominated bureaucracy. That faction is the built-in resistance to his popular decrees, such as the wall and trade deal revocations. Since the Reagan era, the liberals have systematically cataloged and rated every civil service position in the country as to power and influence. Behind-the-scenes pressure, exactly like the Marxist movements around the globe, has allowed them to creep into and take over thousands of these key positions. Just like 1917 in Russia, they are poised to grab power the instant any elected government, Democrat or Republican, fails or even falters. They were certain they had it in the bag until Trump appeared.
Such infiltration is very expensive. They sneakily financed the bulk of it with misappropriated tax dollars. Notice how Trump is handling that? Cut off state money and the liberals and their excesses will evaporate in no time. They don’t like spending their own money. Trump has finally realized the liberals learned a lesson from Reagan, that an outsider with an ounce of honesty and a pro-American agenda can wax their asses. They had a recovery plan but it led straight to Trump. Everything the Democrats touch backfires on them. That reminds me, Democrats, I never vote for or support any organization that makes unsolicited telephone calls.
