The Tease of Things I Don't Need

Speak of the Devil

This one's a rambler, for which I'll apologize in advance.

The ‘net is rough-surfing these days, especially from home. Getting pages to load is a 50% proposition, and Hotmail’s running worse than that. I can’t get MSN Messenger to connect at all – not that I use it for anything but its handy incoming email alerts, but that’s important as it helps keep me on top of what’s coming in, not to mention helping me fight the impulse to check for email every 5 minutes. It seems to be getting worse almost by the day, and with every session degenerating into longer and longer periods of waiting with no greater pay-off than hearing the same, tired obscenities coming from me, it’s been more productive to not bother even trying to go online. One of the system invaders has apparently not only gotten past Norton Anti-Virus, but made it impossible for me to run it for more than a few seconds at a time. Some severe measures are in order.

For now, though, my email’s been piling up and getting to do anything on my blog has fallen farther down the list. So, I thought I'd drop a slice of my day off in here.

After getting out of work after 11pm Thursday I stuck to my guns and took Friday off. There's far more for me to get done, but exhausing myself this week getting more of that cleared would only leave me less able to take care of the rest, not to mention all that will be rolling in next week. I have to take these vacation days sometime.

After taking care of bills & banking, 12 year old son Nick and I headed off to Zern’s Marketplace out in Gilbertsville, PA. It’s a mart, flea market and farmer’s market combination that’s only open Fridays and Saturdays except for right around Christmastime, when they kick in some weekdays. As it’s partially a farmer’s market and is only open two days each week, and it was after 10am and how much fun the net’s been traveling from home of late, I opted not to check their hours prior to heading out.

So, of course, Friday was the day, as we rolled up front a little after 11 am today, that we see that they don’t open until 2pm on Friday.

I can’t decide if the farmer’s are simply that busy or if they’ve slid into a depressed slump under this economy. You know, the real, what it means to live here economy, not the hopped up, skewed numbers and stock market reports we're handed and told is "booming."

The area looks much like too much of more Westerly portions of PA do. It’s tough to quite put my finger on and typify by a handy checklist of telling details, but like the latest Bush administration spin job, I pretty much know it on sight. If you’ve seen any PA town that’s sprung up around the coal, lumber or steel industries, then you know it, too. Streets of tall, thinnish, double-houses mixed with small businesses, mostly built on rolling hills.

Not a hopping burg, we thought we’d drive through and see what presented itself as we tried to fill some of the time between us and 2pm. Lunchtime would fall neatly into part of that, but nowhere near enough.

As we started to drive through town we noticed what at first seemed to be a lot of leftover July 4th decorations, most notably more flags flying than I would normally expect to see. There were clumps of people here and there, too, some balloons and even some people with folding chairs, and a camera in a hand here and there. There were signs taped to nearly every light pole concerning no parking between 8am and 2pm Friday, and most of the side streets were blocked off either completely or had someone allowing traffic through in a very “we could close this any time” manner. All in all, I found myself wondering why it looked as if they were prepped for a parade down main street on Friday, July 9.

Earlier that morning we were listening to the radio, including the special report concerning “intelligence failures” involved in the ramp to the invasion of Iraq, which led to many a conversational comment at the expense of Dubya and his gang. We’d also heard the local news mention that today would be King George II’s thirtieth post-election visit to the state. It being a big state, though, we hadn’t paid attention to where he was headed. The previous 29 times I’d never run afoul of him, his entourage, or any traffic jams caused by security measures.

Thirtieth’s the dark charm, I suppose.

Now, much like the more Westerly towns this resembled, it’s sporting a God, country music, two guns in every house and stars of NASCAR figuring in advertising here and there. The fact that Zern's keeps no Sunday hours is indicative of at least some lingering blue laws mentality in the area, something that had disappeared from my suburban neck of PA around the time Ronald Reagan smiled and quipped his way into office.

Where all these elements combine, I expect a mindset that has swung towards GOP candidates, though it’s usually a misguided Libertarian impulse that’s been co-opted by the GOP in fear tactics. You know the lines: The Democrats want to take away your guns, God and money, and give the money to welfare slackers and conceptual artists who’ll blend a crucifix and human waste, and we’re the only ones who can save you. They'll also appoint more of those "activist judges" we're told to be fearful of, who've done everything from destroying fine American institutions such as slavery, given us the ungodly social anarchy of women and minority voters, and socialistic institutions such as social security and the rampant evils of the New Deal. Knee-slappers to be sure, but some people eat parts of that stuff up.

Still, the place has the look of much belt-tightening and many a second job, and even against the tide of The Big Lie more and more people are tumbling to the reality that our sons, daughters, etc. have been sent off under false pretenses to kill and sometimes be killed for the glory of the Bush legacy and another stellar quarterly report for Haliburton and various defense and energy concerns. Hey, it must be good for America, right? Besides, with so many already dead we can’t back out now; we can only keep the blood already spilled sanctified by being willing to spill some more on top. Wave those flags, too, while you’re at it. That always helps.

Anyway, with all that in mind I was somewhat chagrined to see among the early turnout on the streets (we overheard that the action wasn’t expected for another hour) little children with flags in hand, one or two people walking around with BUSH/CHENEY signs, and, probably worst of all, a family group, mostly daughters, with six 1-foot square signs. “We” "[heart]” “B” “U” “S” “H.” Given the event du jour I had scant hope that this was a contingent from the Young Lesbians Association choosing the wrong day for a gay pride presentation.

We turned around towards the other end of town and made a second pass on the way away from the parade route, as we had no interest in being around to see the well-heeled lox roll into town.

To cut this narrative down -- after lunch and some detours, 2pm finally rolled around and we started to walk around Zerns. Listening to parts of conversations and bits of quick banter between merchants and shoppers over the next hour I was heartened to hear so many dismissing the “visit” as being, at best, something of no interest to them. While I’m sure he has his contingent there – some of the local papers for these areas look like print versions of FOX News – it seemed more likely that the peppering of targeted, pro-Bush messages along the route were likely at least partially staged. I wonder if, like the “spontaneous” pro-Bush groups who showed up during the 2000 recount attempts, a study of photographs along many of these photo op routes would reveal quite a few plants who roll into town to season the stew?