When I was 7 I began riding motorcycles without my parent’s permission. At an early age I learned the thrill of controlling a fast mechanical device without the consent of my elders. It was the thrill seeker’s  exacta and I was hooked. As I grew if someone who knew me said something that involved the phrase, “I dare you”, it was usually directed at me.

At 16 I got my driver’s license the day after my birthday. A week later I took part in my first sports car rally. I eventually earned my Sports Car Club of American ProRally competitor’s license. Without boring you with details of rallying, I have driven down a dirt road that I had never seen before at over 100 mph. At night with another thrill seeker sitting beside me telling me when to turn. On purpose.

I went to school in the late seventies and early eighties. I have no intention of incriminating myself or anyone else but I did attend some parties during that time. I partied like a thrill seeker. Use your imagination.

At 25 despite having limited use of one leg I was introduced to skiing. I’m sure it was odd looking to see someone walking to the ski area with a cane but I became good enough to qualify as an instructor. I also became good enough to ski regularly on the most difficult runs and regularly did. I also did some ski racing. Skiing was just another way to get a thrill when I couldn’t ride motorcycles or drive race cars.

As I’ve aged the thrill seeking activities have lessened primarily due to lack of funds or physical inability. If someone offered me a rally car drive today I’d be in, in a heartbeat but I just don’t have the funds to make it happen myself. I still ride motorcycles and will until I or the law deem myself unable. I do ride a little less hard than I used to. That is more of a decision to avoid possible legal repercussion than less of a need to get a thrill. If I can get that rush from something else I will.

A couple days ago my wife and I were participating in a couple of our less risky avocations. We were shopping for antiques and geocaching. As we were getting close to home she asked if we could go to a particular store so she could get coffee. I never got the whole caffeine rush thing as it has pretty disturbing effects on me physically so I just avoid the stuff. I may be a thrill seeker but that doesn’t make me a fool.

We got to the store around 4 on Saturday afternoon. This store has a huge coffee selection and the coffee junkies were there in droves. My wife was looking for a particular brand and type of coffee. Being the helpful hubby I tried to help but knowing not much about coffee I was just kind of in the way of the regulars. That’s when it happened. I turned 180 degrees from the rack I had been browsing when I saw him. Built like a middle linebacker and intent on the beans directly in front of me he was hurtling towards the coffee rack at break neck speed. Fortunately, I was able to employ two things I learned from racing motorcycles, cars and skis which was situational awareness and accident avoidance. At the last microsecond I moved out of the way of the blitzing linebacker and saved my neck. Dick Butkus got his beans and I got that rush. I now know what it must feel like to run with the bulls at Pamplona. I can’t wait to go coffee shopping again.

From the outside the Porch resembles many long standing historic inns that are found in towns throughout Pennsylvania. Downstairs is a bar featuring light fare with fine dining served upstairs, which is handicapped accessible.

I always feel good when I enter a restaurant for the first time that is fairly crowded on a weeknight. When we arrived for our 7 PM reservation there were only two empty tables. I took that as a good sign.

The Porch has over 50 craft beers available which appealed to the beer snob nature in both of us. The list is reasonably priced but leans heavily towards IPA’s, porters and stouts. Despite having one of my favorite IPA’s, Racer 5 on tap, I opted for a Manhattan, which was properly made and the wife went the wine route, which is available by the glass.

The menu is somewhat limited but I tend to like a smaller menu as I feel that many restaurants try to tackle too much and fall short in many instances. The menu is broken into 1st and 2nd course followed by entrees. Due to food allergies and a lack of anything that really jumped out to either of us we just moved on to the entrée section.

The wife is a big crab cake fan and Chef Joe Edwards claims that his were awarded a Top Five Best Award from “Baltimore Magazine”. The crab is paired with pasta, which she thought a bit odd but she didn’t have too difficult of a time making her decision on the $28 entree.

Several years ago I was at a brewpub in Boston that had Kobe beef meatloaf on the menu, which I ordered. The idea of Kobe beef and meatloaf at first seems almost criminal but after that meal, if I see Kobe beef meatloaf, I’m in. The menu at the Porch described their meatloaf as Wago beef, red wine and wild mushroom sauce with mascarpone mashed potatoes for $18.00. I think they meant Waygu beef, which is a generic term in the states for beef similar to Kobe beef, which isn’t imported into the US. Waygu actually means cow in Japanese so last night I ordered the cow beef meatloaf.

When our food arrived we both had the same reaction. We looked at each other and both mouthed the word peas. Both of our plates were served with peas as a green. One of the things you learn when you grow up in a farming area is what foods are fresh when. Peas are one of the earliest things planted in PA and are usually harvested in June or July. If they are planted in early summer they are harvested by early October at the latest and I’m writing this in November. Even if I didn’t know that by looking at them my brain would have screamed frozen peas.

Regardless of the peas we were there and had plates of food in front of us, so we dug in. The crab cakes (2) were everything you would expect of an award winning crab cake. They had big lumps of crab, were creamy, yet firm and best of all absolutely delicious. The pasta was nicely done but nothing out of the ordinary. Then there were the peas. For what they were they were good. Unfortunately, to our way of thinking they shouldn’t have been on plates that totaled $46.00 especially when the menu proclaims using only the finest ingredients.

Chef Edwards says his meatloaf is a “local favorite with flair”. I think he forgot to put the flair in mine. Don’t get me wrong it was good meatloaf. It was moist but for me not much better than good diner fare that could be had for half the price. The other thing I found surprising about the meatloaf was the size of the portion. When I think meatloaf I think about food I want to eat when I’m hungry and for a 145 pound guy who was moderately hungry when I got there I had plenty of room left over after dinner for more. As far as the mashed potatoes were concerned, they were every bit as good as my partner’s crab cakes.

About two thirds of the way through our meal the people at an adjoining table finished their meal and left. That was when the waitress began clearing the table. I was always under the impression that you never left a table uncovered in a fine dining establishment but that’s what she did. Shortly after that she presented the table next to us their check and proceeded to announce to all in earshot how she was ready to go home.

As our waitress approached to see if we wanted dessert my wife excused herself and headed to the restroom. I have never done this in a restaurant before but I just told the waitress that I had asked my wife if she wanted dessert and she didn’t and we were ready for our check. It just felt as though it was time to leave, not a welcoming atmosphere in which you would want to spend relaxing with coffee and dessert.

When she came back with the tab we presented our Groupon coupon. She then asked if we were there for the first time due to the Groupon offer and invited us back. I was tempted to reply that we were there for the frozen peas and extraordinary hospitality but just left instead.

I think the reason I’ve never found out where the true oldest inland city in the US is located is the only time I am reminded of it is when I enter my home town from the east. There is a sign on the edge of the city limits proclaiming we are number 1. Evidently, it isn’t so important that there are signs on the north, south or western entries into town so normally by the time I get home and could research it, I’ve forgotten. Now I don’t have time.

I’ve been thinking about the end of the world a fair amount lately. It might be because every time I turn on the History/Discovery/NatGeo Channel I am reminded that the Inca/Mayans/Aztecs ran out of numbers on their calendars 5000 years ago causing our impending doom in a couple months. Just because some ancient mathematician/astronomer/shaman couldn’t count beyond 2012 doesn’t portend death and destruction in my mind. Before last night I had thought we would last longer than their calendar.

Rarely does a day go by that I don’t receive an email from one of my more conservative friends urging me to consolidate all of my fundage into precious metals, stock up on Spam (that wonderfully delicious pork product, not the email I frequently complain about), freezers, solar panels, generators and arm myself to the teeth because the end is near. Unfortunately, none of these folks has explained why the end is near. Until last night I wasn’t stocking up. Now I’m reconsidering.

I often think about the end of the world when I see what our government is doing. I need more space than I have allotted here to describe why but the short version is that if our current administration totally screws the pooch, which they seem intent upon, our country may lose its world status as number one. We could wind up number two or three but that won’t destroy the world. That might not be so bad. The Swedes have a culture related to competition where it is more than okay to wind up second or third. Losers are not looked down upon and are actually held in high regard. They have a name for it but since the end is so near I don’t have time to find out what it is called. If it comes to the US being number 2 or 3 and we become more like Swedes I can think of worse places to live than in a country where the cars are designed by aeronautical engineers and the women are tall and leggy. This fate seems so much kinder than what I fear will happen now.

What has me concerned about our impending doom is the invasion that started yesterday in downtown Lancaster, PA. Of course, I am talking about the beardapocalypse. We have been invaded by a group of men and women (yes) who are here to have their facial hair judged. If ever there has been a sign that civilization is doomed it is people judging other people’s facial hair and then paying them for it. To prove the idiocy of this “competition” even more, the prizes are being furnished by Panasonic Shavers. Don’t get me wrong. I like beards. I’ve been sporting one for about 25 years now and intend to wear it to the day I die, which, unfortunately, appears to be imminent. By many accounts the final sign of the end of a civilization is the failure of its people to see what is happening. So people, here is your wake up call. What is happening is people are paying other people for the privilege of looking at their facial hair, financed by a company that sells shavers. The end is nigh.

President Obama claimed he would reduce military involvement and wouldn’t spend money off the budget.  He had a huge military budget supplement in his first year in office, failing on that promise. During President Bush’s term in office anti-war protests were rampant. When President Bush left office there were 33,000 troops in Afghanistan. By mid 2010, under President Obama, that number had grown to 91,000 plus more civilian contractors in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Those same contractor’s casualties were greater than US military personnel last year. In addition to ramping up involvement in Afghanistan he has drone attacked Pakistan, bombed Somalia, hinted at issues with Iran regarding a nuclear reactor that governments around the world agree is perfectly legal and threatened Eritrea. Eritrea? My question is where are the anti-war protestors now?

Then there is the issue of civil liberties. The ACLU gave President Obama a list of items it asked to be acted upon in his first 100 days in office. On issues like spying on Americans, monitoring of activists, terrorism watch lists, the Real ID Act and DNA databases, the administration has carried out none of the ACLU’s recommendations.  Anthony Romero, Executive Director of the ACLU said, “Our hope a year ago was that the Obama administration would restore our nation’s long tradition of respect for privacy and the rule of law by rolling back the privacy-invading domestic security policies enacted by the Bush administration,”. “Unfortunately, many of those policies have not been reversed, and we now run the risk of seeing them become a permanent part of American life.” He promised to close Guantanamo Bay in his first year. It looks as though it will never close. He claimed his administration would protect whistle blowers and then detained Bradley Manning.

Then there is the issue of the execution/assassination of Anwar Awlaki without due process. Awlaki, an American citizen, is regarded by the government as a terrorist. A Department of Justice spokesman was quoted by the “Washington Post” as saying that Awlaki “should surrender to American authorities and return to the United States, where he will be held accountable for his actions.”  He’s not been charged with any crimes, let alone indicted for any. Awlaki’s father, the ACLU and the Center for Constitutional Rights have filed suit against President Obama, Leon Panetta and Robert Gates among others as defendants. The suit was filed on his behalf as the suit states “Awlaki is unable to file the lawsuit on his own because the U.S. government’s threats to kill him, as well as its prior unsuccessful attempts to do so, cause him to be in hiding and thus make it infeasible for him to assert his legal rights directly”. The Department of Justice has claimed the suit should be dismissed due to state secrets. If suit dismissal is allowed it will enable the President of the US to sentence Americans to death without due process. I certainly am not inclined to protect terrorists but I am very much in favor of protecting the Fifth Amendment and due process. So far, very little has been done to improve civil rights. Potentially much will be done to harm them.

Mr. Obama claims that Obama Care will reduce insurance costs. In 2006 Massachusetts instituted what is generally regarded by industry experts as the beta version of the plan. In March of 2010 insurance carriers in Massachusetts asked for approval of rate increase for businesses and individuals ranging from eight to thirty two percent. Beta tests usually show how things actually work.

President Obama passed a stimulus bill that is supposed to stimulate the economy. Some of the things in the bill include a $246 million tax break for Hollywood movie producers to buy motion picture film. $650 million for the digital TV convertor box coupon program. $448 million allotted for construction of the Homeland Security headquarters. $1 billion for the 2010 census which is expected to have a cost overrun of $3 million. $10 million is dedicated to inspecting canals in urban areas. $650 million has been set aside for wildfire management on forest service lands. $1.2 billion dollars is allocated for youth programs and an additional $100 million dollars is slated for reducing the hazards of lead based paint. I’d like to know how any of these things, especially reducing lead based paint hazards will improve our economy. This brings me to my real worry about our current administration.

My greatest concern regarding the current administration is President Obama’s legacy. My fear is that President Obama will not be remembered for being the first biracial president. I fear history won’t remember him as an incredibly articulate, gifted speaker. My concern is he will be remembered as the man who bankrupted America. President Obama promised to cut the deficit in half by the end of his first term. He has already quadrupled it. In his first three budgets, Obama borrowed nearly $5 trillion. Currently, the government is borrowing about 45 percent of everything that it spends. The government during the last three years has borrowed on average about $4 billion each day. That staggering sum is far in excess of the $1.6 billion per day borrowed during the eight-year tenure of George W. Bush, who until Obama entered office borrowed more money than any other president.

President Obama has embraced Keynesian economics. Huge deficits empower more federal hiring and more entitlements and our President has certainly done that. 100,000 new federal jobs and almost 50,000,000 new food stamp recipients can only lead to two things, bigger government and higher taxes.

It is said that those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it. I am afraid that the path we are on will create a situation in the US much like that in the European Union. Ireland, Greece, Spain and Portugal have huge national debts yet they have not had significant job creation, which is what Mr. Obama spoke about tonight. Stateside, Texas and Utah shine in new job creation in the last few years. Both states are regarded as having fewer governmental regulations than other states with more private sector jobs than government based. President Obama said that small business is key in promoting job development and I agree. Job development in a stagnant economy is vitally important but so is reducing the overreaching arms of government, entitlements and spending money we don’t have. At one point during his address Mr. Obama said something about simple math. Math is simple. When you go from borrowing 1.6 billion dollars a day to borrowing $4 billion a day it is time to break out the calculator and figure out a way to stop borrowing all that money.

Do I have smelly feet? From about 1974 to 1976 the answer would have unequivocally been, yes. In 1974 I shot up from about four feet ten inches tall to about five feet eleven, which meant that I could then obtain sneakers like my basketball idol Walt Frazier wore. After much pleading, cajoling, begging and whining I got a pair of “Clydes”, which were blue suede athletic shoes. If ever there was a bad idea it was putting the feet of a pubescent teenager in blue suede shoes for about 18 hours a day, most of which were spent running. Fortunately for olfactory concerns everywhere, a couple years later I got my driver’s license, which meant I stopped running everywhere and more importantly, discovered women which required I also discover better hygiene. I hope this little insight garners you mondo coins.

Let’s move on to the burning question of trying to determine if I have ever skinny dipped. Let’s see, I grew up in the 1960’s and 70’s. I lived in a town of a few hundred people in a rural area with a creek half a mile from home. I went to a swimming pool practically every day, every summer from the age of 3 until 9th grade. I was one of those people other people talked about who thought I may have been into experimenting with things. You know the kind of things people experimented with in the 70’s. In college I lived in a trailer court with a pool for two years and an apartment complex near a pool my last year of school. You would probably think I did it all the time but no coins for you if you answered yes.

The questions about have I ever had stitches and do I drive too fast can be combined into one answer. I was the kid who when his buddies said I bet you can’t, I usually could. Most of these challenges revolved around, higher, longer and most often faster. When I couldn’t it sometimes ended in stitches. My last surgery put me over 500 stitches, total. None of those came from driving too fast. More importantly my question to you is do I drive too fast for what?

I’ve decided to finish up this little reveal regarding part of my creative side. One of the questions people are whispering about me involves cooking and the other karaoke. More to the point, can I cook and do I enjoy singing karaoke. The short answers are yes and no. The longer answers are below.

My mom got sick when I was a kid and died when we were both too young. I learned to cook young, out of necessity and decided in college to learn to cook things that required more than fat and a frying pan. It has become a lifelong passion. I love to cook and believe, by all accounts from what I’ve heard about my cooking, I’m pretty damn good at it. I even had a friend offer to buy me a restaurant. I don’t want it to become a job. If you’re in the neighborhood stop by with some mystery protein and maybe I’ll treat you to a little cast iron chef treatment.

At the height of the karaoke craze I was selling cars. At the end of a selling marathon a group of us went to a bar where we set about the task of drinking too much. At some point it was determined by the group that I had reached the appropriate level of intoxication to play along with this new fad and I was unceremoniously drug up on stage. About two notes in I realized that I was expected to sing a Jimmy Buffett song. I immediately sobered up and left the stage. Probably the only thing that would have gotten me off the stage faster was a Bob Dylan song or a jetpack strapped to my back. I don’t like Jimmy Buffett and I can’t stand Bob Dylan, primarily because I appreciate music. I know there will be knee jerk reactions to that but that is part of the beauty of music. I don’t have to like what you like and vice versa. I have sung in a choir, a chorus, an a cappella jazz group, a rock band and briefly a funk band. I have been told I sing well. I have almost a three octave range and perfect pitch. I can’t imagine what my life would be without music. As I write this I am singing along with Joan Osborne who is covering a bunch of great R&B and soul songs on her 2002 release, “How Sweet It Is”. Joan and I sound great together all by ourselves but you may not think so, which is a big part of why I don’t sing Karaoke. I don’t want to inflict my musical choices on someone who is mostly defenseless against the karaoke onslaught. Recently, I was in an antiques store where people were singing karaoke. My only defense was to leave. The only thing worse than people singing karaoke in an antiques place is people doing it any other place I happen to be where I have made a commitment to staying by having had the audacity to order food or drink. I don’t get it. I don’t like it and I’m not going to do it. There, you have it. So, if you promise not to sing karaoke I promise I’ll let you have all of the “coins” I earn when I get around to answering stupid questions about you.

The plan seemed pretty good up until you actually acted but then it quickly unraveled. You have two things against you. Spam filters and your lack of a fully functioning brain. Do you really think that someone is going to “white list” their ad when the return email address you show for Craig’s List is teslamuffin444@gmail.com?

To the idiots who send the email asking if I want to trade with their fictitious item with the blind link, the answer is no. You see my ad wasn’t for an item. There isn’t anything there to trade and I don’t like the fact that you are phishing. If you had actually read the ad instead of relying on some crappy software to find email addresses you would know that.

The other thing you might have read if you had read (assuming you can read) my ad is the final line of all of my posts on CL. It reads, Spammers will be forwarded to CL and the Federal Trade Commission. CL has no real teeth to speak of. The FTC on the other hand has the ability to fine you at the lovely rate of $16,000 per spam email and I hope they find you, with my help.

My suggestion, CL Spammer, is grow a brain and get a real job. For some reason I doubt you’d be able to pay those fines when the Feds do catch up with you and they will. I’d hate to think of you leaving that room with the lovely view to become someone’s bitch in prison since you can’t pay that mountain of fines. On second thought, just keep doing what you are doing. I think the FTC is just around the corner from your apartment now. Can you spell bitch?

I played all sports as a kid and basketball was my favorite. I watched the game, studied the game, read about it and practiced religiously. If you had asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, the answer up until I started to really grow up, was basketball player. After I really grew up the answer had to be something else as I was a skinny white kid, a little shy of the six foot mark.

Growing up white in a fairly rural area in Pennsylvania in the sixties, I could have easily fallen into becoming prejudiced. I honestly believe one of the main reasons I didn’t was sports. If I could have controlled my destiny at the age of eight or so I would have grown up to be Walt Frazier. He had all the right moves offensively and defensively, one of the prettiest jump shots of all time and off the court wore platform shoes with live gold fish in them.

I could relate to Walt Frazier and the players of that era. They were a little larger than most people I knew but not radically so. They also only made a little more money than your average Joe. Today’s average NBA athlete is 6’8”, weighs 231 pounds and earned on average in 2008, $5.356 million dollars, not including endorsements. What is even more amazing about these professional giants is that within five years of retirement, 60 percent of them are broke. For some reason I can’t relate to that. I just have a disconnect to a game which I used to play with fairly normal size people who knew that when you took more than two steps without dribbling or passing the other team got the ball, which is now played by mega millionaires who travel practically every time they go up the court.

I’m sure there are racists who don’t watch basketball for the simple reason that they don’t want to watch athletes of another race who are far superior to themselves earn a great deal more money. I’m also guessing that those same racists weren’t watching the NBA 10 or 20 years ago. My suggestion to Mr. Bissinger is if he really wants to see the NBA fan base return, get the NBA to eliminate the salary cap and institute a height cap. And while he is at it he should see about getting those traveling rules enforced a little more strictly.

For most of my life I have been the same size. Thanks to a neurosurgeon I’m now a little shorter than when I bought my first menswear but other than parts of my spine being removed I’ve been pretty much the same size. If you don’t ride the wave of the style elite and go for more conservative clothes it makes for cheap dressing. I actually still have a pair of pants from the summer between 8^th and 9^th grade and they still fit.

A couple months ago those pants didn’t fit. I didn’t try them on but I knew. Probably a year and a half ago I noticed my pants were getting a little snug. At first I ignored it. Then I just blamed it on changes in lifestyle, eating habits, getting old or the fact that all of my pain issues from back surgeries and old sports and racing mishaps made it hard to exercise. Then I did the logical thing and, for the first time in thirty six years, bought pants with a larger waistline.

I dealt with the increased girth for probably a year or so. For some reason around Thanksgiving I just decided that I was not going to deal with it much longer. I have never made a New Year’s resolution but I guess this came pretty close. I got through the holidays and almost immediately set about getting back to my fighting weight from high school.

In 42 days I lost 21 pounds. I changed my breakfast from meat and eggs to granola, cut back on the beer and most importantly increased my exercise regimen to where it needs to be to not only maintain my proper weight but support my serious back issues. Once again, I weigh what I weighed the first time I bought clothes in the men’s department. I’m a few weeks away from 51 and I feel pretty good.

There is only one problem with being at my ideal weight. While I was carrying that extra bit of weight I bought some pants I really like. They don’t make them in my ideal size and if I wear them without a belt I look like a gangsta wannabe. Picture William Tecumseh Sherman with cargo pants riding down his ass and you have a pretty good idea. So I did the logical thing. I went in search of a new belt to hold up my beloved pants. I searched high and low throughout a fairly decent sized mall. I hit all five of the “anchor” stores and then the specialty retailers and no one had a belt to fit me in the men’s department.

One of the advantages of having what clothing designers call an “athletic” fit is that you don’t really need a belt to hold up your pants. It really is an accessory and I usually don’t wear one as it bothers my back. If I want to continue to wear the pants that I am so comfortable in I need to acquire a belt. I finally found one that is a perfect fit. It was in the boy’s department at Sears. My waist is the same size it was 36 years ago when I started shopping in the men’s department. With the exception of the last year and a half it has been that size. The only thing that I can ascertain from this last shopping venture is that the clothing retailers in my area are giving in to all of the reports about the American populace becoming obese, which is why I bought a belt in the boy’s department. I guess the next time I need underwear I’ll buy it online.

The reason I get to play the straight man is I am the expert. That is probably my father’s fault. Before I could walk he bought me some rudimentary electric go-kart. I would crawl into it and navigate through our home and Dad’s business at supposed break neck speeds. I couldn’t talk. I couldn’t walk but I could drive. It is no wonder I spent much of my life working with and spare time playing with cars.

One of our classic routines involves a 1965 Chevrolet Corvair Corsa Turbo Convertible. My sister owned this car for three weeks. I can remember every nuance of it. Not just the car but the smell and the sound of it. I was 5 and my sister was old enough to be in college doing some one semester gig at the University of Delaware instead of at Kutztown where I thought she was going. Anyway, she was driving a red, turbocharged, 4 speed convertible Corvair wherever she was going. It was red, had wire wheels (factory) and an aftermarket Hurst shifter with a white cue ball shift knob. I think that was the first time I felt jealousy or at least recognized it.

I remember the way it sounded, the way you got a little shove in the back when the turbo kicked in and the way the steering wheel vibrated violently at 65 mph. Not that I drove it but I can still see Dad’s hands shaking violently trying to control it. The guys at the garages we took it to all blamed the vibration on the factory wire wheels for being so hard to balance. Dad decided it was too dangerous and the Corvair went away three weeks after we got it. My sister doesn’t remember the car at all. I still want it. A couple years ago I asked a buddy of mine who lived across the street if he remembered the car. He immediately replied,” yeah, red with factory wires”. My sister doesn’t remember it. It makes for a classic routine.

I think we may have started a new routine today. She called and began the conversation with some reference to cars and expertise, which meant I was going into straight man mode. The car in question this time is a 1993 Chrysler Cordoba. If you are reading this and know anything about cars you know this can’t be as the Cordoba was made between 1975 and 1985. If you don’t know anything about cars but watched TV in that era you will recognize that as the car which introduced America to Corinthian Leather. This was a car that was named for a city in Spain and had a hood ornament that looked like a stylized Argentine flag. The leather was named for a city in Greece or possibly Texas and the whole mess was introduced to us by a guy from Mexico. The car was as confusing and as confused as I was by the end of our conversation. I wasn’t confused by the car. I recognized it as junk when it was introduced and have not changed my position in 36 years. What confused me is how my sister found a car that she claims was built in 1993 with 63,000 miles on it that wasn’t built after 1985. The routine still has a couple rough edges but should be available on Amazon.com soon. Look for it in the comedy section next to forgotten Corvairs.

When you see a bumper sticker telling the world that the person driving in front of you has a dog that is smarter than your honor student, you know you are behind someone who loves their pet, probably doesn’t have kids or has one incredibly smart pooch.

“What do you mean we can’t shoot them? It’s tourist season, isn’t it?” means you are probably driving in the wrong lane with your left turn signal on and won’t appreciate the humor until you return home.

“Don’t like logging, try wiping with a pine cone” pretty much tells you that you aren’t behind a tree hugger. “My Prius accelerates faster than your SUV” proves this particular tree hugger is a bigger fool than the vast majority of SUV drivers when it comes to making vehicular choices and bumper sticker selections.

Bumper stickers have become a great way of expressing your affiliations, convictions, desires or simply proving that you are a fool. I read them because one day I might find the secret to enlightenment on the back of a car or discover that I am also a fool.

What has prompted all of this bumper sticker musing is the sole bumper sticker I saw on the back of a Chevy Blazer a couple days ago. I probably read it half a dozen times to make sure I got it right. I had it committed to memory on read number one but really needed to make certain. It said, “I own a horse and I vote”.

For days, whenever all other activity in my brain ceased I immediately heard or saw, “I own a horse and I vote”. What does this mean? Who is the target of this message and why? Are horse owners an endangered species? Will Jesse Ventura soon be warning us that not only is the government taking away our guns, water, and food and killing a bunch of us to boot but now is also taking our horses? Say it ain’t so! I can’t compare “I own a horse and I vote” to anything like, “I own a gun and I vote”. That makes sense. Is it some kind of secret code? Perhaps the Masons know. Maybe it has something to do with the Mayans or Incas and the end of the world in 2012.

Perhaps “I own a horse and I vote” actually means nothing and was just designed to torment those of us who read it. If so, I must commend the author. You have succeeded beyond your wildest dreams. If it is actually intended to mean something that is supposed to engender fear or concern or some other emotion or thought process, you missed the mark by a long shot. In that case I can only say to you, mysterious bumper sticker author, in the words of another bumper sticker author, “Your village called. They are missing an idiot.”