Last Friday, I awoke at 6:20am, as usual. I dressed, put in my
contacts, and ignored my hair, as usual. I picked up my walking
shoes by the front door, as usual, and, stepping outside, sat on
the front step to put them on, reflecting, as usual, that I really
should buy some new ones; these are plumb worn out.
Last Friday, I awoke at 6:20am, as usual. I dressed, put in my contacts, and ignored my hair, as usual. I picked up my walking shoes by the front door, as usual, and, stepping outside, sat on the front step to put them on, reflecting, as usual, that I really should buy some new ones; these are plumb worn out.
I gazed absently across the bare expanse of my front lawn, and gradually became aware that something was not quite usual in my yard; to wit: the Bush/Cheney ’04 sign that had graced my lawn for two weeks, that so proudly I had hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming, had disappeared.
Now, I am not one to jump to conclusions, so I limped, half-shod, back inside the house, and asked my daughter, who was, most unusually, already awake, whether she had moved my sign. She had not.
When I returned from my walk, I emailed my husband at work, to ask if perchance he had moved my sign. He e-replied, “Certainly not. We have been victimized by the running dog lackeys of global tyranny. Or the local kids.”
Local kids are certainly a possibility in our neighborhood. However, I favor the running dog lackey hypothesis. One would expect kids to be, shall we say, non-partisan in their acts of hooliganism. But I put up campaign signs of some sort or another semiannually, at every election. Only once before, in February 2000, has one vanished. Nor was I the only victim that year. On Feb. 18, 2000, my column read, in part:
“Last Friday morning a friend called me. She said her ‘Yes on 22’ sign had been torn down twice and thrown over the fence. Call the sheriff, I advised her, to document the incident. Then I went to Park Day, where I heard a similar story from another family.
“James (not his real name) lives out toward Morgan Hill. His grandparents put up a ‘Yes on 22’ sign, which was promptly stolen, so they put up another. James was crawling through the shrubbery in the front yard one afternoon, pretending to be a GI, when he heard a car pull up. The driver of the car got out and started for the ‘Yes on 22’ sign. James popped out of the bushes. The driver froze, then scurried back to his car and roared away. James’s grandfather moved the sign into a tree.
“I returned from Park Day in a thoughtful mood, only to find that my ‘Yes on 22′ sign had been stolen from my front yard. I called the cops, who sent a very nice officer out to take a report. These incidents cause me to question just how tolerant homosexual activists are of diversity in political thought.”
To this day, I find it curious that people who think of themselves as champions of freedom, democracy, and civil rights would resort to thievery and the violation of another person’s freedom of speech in order to silence their political adversaries.
It confirms my belief that modern day leftists are no longer liberals, but mere socialists in Democrats’ clothing.
It took me four days to find another Bush/Cheney sign. Let us see if this one stays put till Nov. 2.
Another set of signs are giving me fits these days. The city has recommenced construction on the Taj Mahal – pardon, I meant our $27 million police station. They have blocked off Hanna Street between 6th and 7th.
If I need to go to Nob Hill, instead of heading north on Hanna, I must head south on Hanna, then west, then finally north on Miller. This is merely inconvenient.
If I need to go downtown, instead of going north on Hanna to 6th, the detour signs direct me east on 7th to Church, where they tell me to make a left-hand turn against the thick Church Street traffic. Parked cars on both sides limit visibility. This detour is not merely inconvenient, but dangerous.
The traffic engineer had better reconsider his alternatives, before some hapless left-turner gets creamed at Church and 7th.
