by Pa Rock
Homebody
I arrived at Kansas City International Airport (KCI) at 10:30 yesterday evening, bringing to a close my Wild West adventure of the past ten days. The plan had been to attend the Renaissance Festival in the Kansas City area today, but at the last minute I decided to pack it in and head home. Rosie was really glad that I did!
I will catch the Renaissance Festival next year.
My seatmate on the flight from San Diego to Kansas City was a very nice blind lady from Columbia, Missouri, who was traveling with Enzo, her seeing-eye German Shepherd. Enzo was such a good dog on the flight and laid quietly at his mistress's feet - even during the take-off and landing. The lady, whose grown daughter and son-in-law were traveling in the seats across the aisle from us, told me that she had lost her sight as a child and Enzo was her ninth guide dog. She said he was trained at the best school for service dogs in America - a "school" in Morristown, New Jersey. She also told me that Enzo had been named after the narrator, also a dog, in the novel The Art of Racing in the Rain.
I learned a bit about drinking straws while on this trip. Social movements often get their footing in places like Oregon and California. I had heard that some places are banning plastic bags and straws because that waste often winds up in the oceans - and in rural Missouri, flying plastic bags, especially Walmart plastic bags, tend to catch in the upper limbs of the tall pines that grow on my little farm - where they wave for months like obscene corporate flags.
This trip provided a look at what banning these items actually looks like. I bought some snacks and a fountain drink at the quick stop located in the truck center where I spent a night in Portland. There were no straws on the counter, and before I could ask, the clerk leaned over the counter and whispered: "Do you want a straw?" "Yes," I stammered, sort of taken aback by his secretive nature. He handed me one and then whispered, "We're not allowed to ask, but I figured that you might not know that." It turns out that if a customer needs a straw in Portland, it is the customer's responsibility to ask for one.
I don't know the status of the movement in southern California, but the 7-Elevens are now stocking only paper straws - are packing purchases in paper bags.
Missouri should be catching up to the West Coast on the issue of straws and bags in another five years or so, and when that happens it will be every bit as controversial as the new-fangled lightbulbs that Obama had shipped in from Kenya a few years back. Hillbillies have trouble with change!
But all things considered, it's good to be back home!
Homebody
I arrived at Kansas City International Airport (KCI) at 10:30 yesterday evening, bringing to a close my Wild West adventure of the past ten days. The plan had been to attend the Renaissance Festival in the Kansas City area today, but at the last minute I decided to pack it in and head home. Rosie was really glad that I did!
I will catch the Renaissance Festival next year.
My seatmate on the flight from San Diego to Kansas City was a very nice blind lady from Columbia, Missouri, who was traveling with Enzo, her seeing-eye German Shepherd. Enzo was such a good dog on the flight and laid quietly at his mistress's feet - even during the take-off and landing. The lady, whose grown daughter and son-in-law were traveling in the seats across the aisle from us, told me that she had lost her sight as a child and Enzo was her ninth guide dog. She said he was trained at the best school for service dogs in America - a "school" in Morristown, New Jersey. She also told me that Enzo had been named after the narrator, also a dog, in the novel The Art of Racing in the Rain.
I learned a bit about drinking straws while on this trip. Social movements often get their footing in places like Oregon and California. I had heard that some places are banning plastic bags and straws because that waste often winds up in the oceans - and in rural Missouri, flying plastic bags, especially Walmart plastic bags, tend to catch in the upper limbs of the tall pines that grow on my little farm - where they wave for months like obscene corporate flags.
This trip provided a look at what banning these items actually looks like. I bought some snacks and a fountain drink at the quick stop located in the truck center where I spent a night in Portland. There were no straws on the counter, and before I could ask, the clerk leaned over the counter and whispered: "Do you want a straw?" "Yes," I stammered, sort of taken aback by his secretive nature. He handed me one and then whispered, "We're not allowed to ask, but I figured that you might not know that." It turns out that if a customer needs a straw in Portland, it is the customer's responsibility to ask for one.
I don't know the status of the movement in southern California, but the 7-Elevens are now stocking only paper straws - are packing purchases in paper bags.
Missouri should be catching up to the West Coast on the issue of straws and bags in another five years or so, and when that happens it will be every bit as controversial as the new-fangled lightbulbs that Obama had shipped in from Kenya a few years back. Hillbillies have trouble with change!
But all things considered, it's good to be back home!
1 comment:
The Hillbillies used to use paper straws made at a factory across Glenstone from Evangel College, the Dixie Paper Cup factory. Hillbillies and their city cousins could work there or perhaps making color television sets at the Zenith plant also in Springfield. I suspect you can get the hillbillies to take to paper straws by telling them that their old time religion must be sipped with the old time straw.
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