Democracy in Action, USA-Style

 

by Pa Rock

Vagabond

I am doing laundry at my hotel this morning to eat up some time before I go crashing in on my grandchildren.  I know they got home late last night, and teenagers need their rest!

I planned the entire trip around  tourist attire - shorts, tee-shirts, socks and sandals, and have plenty still clean that would easily last until I get home, but I was getting tired of looking at the growing pile of dirty clothes, so this was a good opportunity to catch up.  The hotel has one coin-operated washer and dryer, and they happen to be next door to my room.  It's as if the Clothes God was speaking to me directly!

Canadian radio features a wide variety of early morning talk shows, so I picked up on some cultural cues and I was driving and listening.  One story was about ankle socks for men, which is what I wear with my sandals.  Apparently ankle socks are now out of fashion and the long tube socks are back.  That works for me - I live for being out of fashion!

There were also several news stories while I was in Canada focused on the death of Canadian actor, and one of my personal favs, Donald Sutherland.  He had so many great roles.  Sutherland and Jane Fonda also did an anti-Vietnam War tour of the Far East during the early 1970's, and they had held a rally on Okinawa just before I arrived for my first assignment there in 1972.  Bob Hope also did his last Vietnam Era USO show in 1972 and was on Okinawa  just before I got there as well.

One thing that seemed to be ignored on the Canadian news was the US presidential race.  So I am playing catch-up with that now.  The first debate is this week, an event that will mark the end of any significance to which the national political conventions might have been clinging.  Now the presidential nominees are selected by a handful of political power brokers in a few "early" states, and the rest of the nation can deal with what they give us - or go pound sand.  So Thursday evening anyone one who wants to can tune in and root for their favorite geriatric, both of whom are twenty years or more past their prime, neither of whom enjoys majority support from the American public, and one of whom is insane and a convicted felon.   Democracy in action, USA-style!

The clothes are in the dryer and my first day in Salem is about to begin.  More later.