Congressman Gets an Earful

Ed Perlmutter Dem CO has a "Government at the Grocery" one to two times a month. I admire him for making himself available. Today wasn't his day. Seems a lot of folks aren't happy about Obamacare. Peaceful crowd. Our local police were there in force to keep it that way. One plainclothes was hustling shopping carts for those who were there to buy groceries. Both sides were present with their signs. Some were even talking to each other.

Please excuse the quality of the cellphone photo.

Racial Profiling??? Don't Think So

In the early 1990's, working at a big car store, I became good friends with a man on my crew. We were of similar age, veterans, married, raising kids, buying a house, etc. Our primary differences were skin color and fear of the police. We often car pooled and he was always alerting me when he saw a police car. When he was driving he was always hyper alert for police cars. I got many an earful about "driving while black". We were never stopped which was a good thing. He was a daily cannabis user. I often wondered if the root of his fear was illegal activity.

During my time at this store, I came to know many police officers. We sold used cars to the county for undercover use. After a few weeks we bought them back for a few hundred less than we sold them if the cars weren't trashed. Our city police had to park in an isolated lot open to vandalism. Many wanted a cheap beater for commuting and I had many for customers. Good thing for my miscreant children. All these officers seemed focused on criminals, shitheads, dopers and drunks. Skin color was incidental. I rarely heard any racial remarks but many disparaging remarks about bad drivers, gang activity, drug dealers, ADAs and judges.

One day I was involved in a minor fender bender; the other driver swerved into me. His story, told to Sgt. K, was he was trying to miss a dog. He had other problems. His car wasn't registered to him, he didn't have proof of insurance, and his fluency in English was poor. When Sgt. K wrote him a citation, he went off. "No, you no give me ticket. No, you make insurance go up. No, you find dog owner give him ticket. No, no sign ticket. You pick on me, me Asian, you no fair to me." Talked himself into handcuffs and a ride to jail. Sgt. K was a mellow policeman, more of a peace officer than a cop, but he had his limits. The driver got arrested for being an asshole. That is what I said in court six weeks later. The judge had a few choice words for me.

I strive to treat everyone with courtesy. On the few occasions I've had to deal with Badge Heavy officers, I've kept my cool. The time and place to deal with them is with their supervisor. I've done that. It takes a little fortitude to talk to the Undersheriff or Chief. You are not in a friendly environment. If you are not prepared to take action, STFU. If you don't have the guts to deal with the problem, you are the problem. That is my position. Your mileage may vary.

Hunting Dogs and Buicks

After years of roaming, my parents settled down in a then small mountain town. In this town was a proud Buick owner who got a new car every two or three years and took great pleasure in showing off his relative, to his neighbors, better financial status. He was also thoroughly unpleasant and haughty. One winter night, two high school students jacked up the rear of his car and put blocks under the axle near each wheel so that the tires were barely off the ground. He gets off work, starts the Buick and tries to back up. When it didn't move, he floored the accelerator. Either the spinning tires made ground contact or the Buick fell off the blocks. In any case, the Buick ended up across the street buried in a snowbank.

New to the town was a Southerner with hunting dogs. To train them, he had a crippled bobcat. He would take the bobcat outside of town, let it loose, and recapture the cat after his dogs treed it. Great fun for everyone but the bobcat. One day the bobcat got treed in the rafters of Buick owner's garage. Buick owner, investigating the commotion, finds a half dozen dogs jumping on his Buick trying to get the bobcat in the rafters. While he wasn't amused, the rest of the town was. The combinations of dog bites, fist fights, police, Game and Fish, lawyers, city fathers, and insurance adjusters involvement's took the town through the winter doldrums all the way to spring.

Recently, a bear was found wandering the town streets. Ah, the potential of a bear, dogs, and the trust funders who now populate the town makes my imagination go wild.

Sometimes Life Kicks You In The Gut

Just learned the wife of a good high school friend/classmate was killed yesterday. She was run over by a truck while she was at her mailbox. A great woman dead because of "inattentive driving". Years ago an aunt was hit and killed in the breakdown lane of I-80 while trying to help a stranded motorist. In another state, a favorite cousin was mowed down by a drunk driver. Such a waste.

Seems we should be grateful for those blue lights behind us. Not only is the general public being protected, we are being guided away from behaviors that can lead to a lifetime of regret.

Rest in Peace L.F.

Lookout Kansas!

High Plains, Eastern Colorado, early afternoon producing lightning and starting prairie fires.

Train Pictures

I've always liked trains and have tried many times to take a decent train photo. I like this one, The Cheyenne Frontier Days Special, just North of Platteville, CO at Mile 37.

How to Lose a Sale

Piss off a deputy sheriff. He had me drive a manual transmission Dodge Diesel as his right arm ended in a hook. I knew he was a deputy but forgot on the test drive and did my usual slow roll through a stop sign. He yelled, "I can't believe you did that in front of a police officer!" "Sorry", I replied, "That was stupid".

He didn't buy the truck. I felt bad, not because I didn't make the sale, because he was a customer looking for a truck and I spoiled his visit by hurting his feelings. It wasn't a personal slight on my part; I am a traffic law scofflaw. Perhaps he was a wee bit too sensitive?