Sunday, July 04, 2010

Our Independence

I used to pull off the road some nights and park my car out of the way and open the trunk and pull out a piece of cardboard and my sleeping bag and find a place on a high spot so I could sit in and have a sandwich and coffee and from my vantage point watch headlights on-coming in the night, little twin points of white light coming toward me, red lights trailing, leaving for home, maybe a ranch in the distance, a house with a warm stove and curtains on the windows, a feather quilt on the bed, food in the fridge, and hot coffee in the early morning as the sun rose on a new day. Some times I'd sit for a couple of hours and watch a dozen cars come and go.

A man can make his own life, more or less, in America. On the Fourth of July, that making of ones own life is a lot more focussed for us all, maybe on a crowd watching fireworks in the night sky, maybe just sitting on the stoop watching folks walk past to a bar-be-cue with the neighbours in someone's back yard.

I'd pack up my cardboard and my sleeping bag, put away my dinner, and climb back into the car and slowly rejoin the highway in the night, watching the barrel cactus and the moon-rise over the desert. I could hear the screen door bang and hear the thump of boots on the floor, and the squeak of bed springs, the click of a table lamp. But I still had miles and miles to go into the darkness.

Many times I'd wake at dawn and find frost on the windshield. I'd get out and stretch, kick a rock across the road, and look down the highway for sign of a diner and breakfast, a "Good morning," and a newspaper. Miles to go.

4 comments:

in the vanguard said...

The same was ONCE true in Israel. You could ONCE pull over, spread a blanket, make a picnic, see fellow back-packers, etc. Once you could "take it easy" wherever you were.

NOW those times are gone with the wind. There ain't no such freedom anymore. You see, once you give Muslims an inch, they want a foot. Once you make a Muslim feel more comfortable, and suspect him less, he begins to inflate his chest, thinks of more daring plots how to overpower the foolish enemy who shows signs of "weakening"... and the rest is history.

Today Muslims have infested Israel; They're all over, and wherever they are, you cannot relax anymore. Connivingly they "make nice" with Jewish leftists and more and more problems for the Jewish country accrue.

Our democracy here allows Muslims to enter in droves, and the liberal Democrats have gained a whole lot of control, two ingredients for disaster.

So while you can, enjoy the freedoms.

Dag said...

Maybe once, as in that one odd day in history, one had safety and security in the night in Israel from jihadis. That might have been pre-1880 and the beginnings of Zionism. I really can't recall a time and don't know of a time when I would have felt unthreatened by the approach in the night of a Muslim had I been on the roadside in the darkness. I wouldn't have tried that anywhere in the Middle East. Now, unfortunately, it's not particularly safe to be outside and isolated in America in the night, especially in the American southwest, as above.

in the vanguard said...

I spoke of the times between the mid-60's to about '74. During those times you could backpack ANYWHERE within the Israeli borders. If you met a Muslim, he was not in the least threatening. They kept a low profile. They would not have thought to be mischievous.

They rise to offend - ONLY when given to feel there's a chance to grab more, cheat more. The liberal left kept pushing for their equal citizenry, at the expense of religious Jewish citizenry, whom leftist liberals despise. They wanted to remake the Holy Land into a "universal" one, and to hell with this "Jewishness". The Muslims caught the drift and the result is the chaos that's not going to stop until you get tough with Muslims - it's the ONLY discipline they understand. I humbly direct you to something I wrote here (http://hezbos.blogspot.com/2009/08/know-your-enemy.html) to catch the meaning of what I'm saying.

Dag said...

Not all comments are meant for public consumption, but I say "Hello" to you. I wish you the best.