Woman Blockwalking Run Over by Own Pickup

That MIGHT have been the headline in our local paper thanks to my own stupidity.

I was in a hurry to get home, but I had just one more house on my list. We designed postcard-sized doorhangers with voter info on one side and candidate info on the other. I left my pickup running and THOUGHT I'd set the parking brake. I ran up the sidewalk and attached the card to the door handle.

When I turned around, my truck (standard transmission) was rolling backward toward the T-intersection, headed for the street sign and the neighbor's rock flowerbed. Panicked, I raced for the truck and like an idiot opened the door and tried to jump in. I'm too short and chubby to "jump" into a Ford F150 cab while it's gaining speed.

Fortunately I realized I could fall and be run over by the front wheel, so I backed away, and at the last moment the truck missed the street sign, rolled across the busy (and at that time empty) street, jumped the curb, and stopped momentarily in a yard, missing the mailbox!

As it began to roll the other direction, I DID jump in the cab, shift to first, and got out of there as fast as I could while shaking uncontrollably. I don't think anyone saw me. If they did and happened to video what happened, look for me on America's Funniest Home Videos....

I get to educate an Obama zombie at Bucee's!

On the way back from the North Houston Tea Party Patriots rally to encourage people to vote beginning Monday (early voting in Texas), our caravan stopped at Bucee's, a great "pit stop" on I-10 not quite halfway from Houston to Kerrville. Because our fife & drum corps had played at the rally, I was still in costume although most of the kids had changed out of theirs.

A young woman about 19 or 20 kept staring at me and finally asked, "Who are you supposed to be?"

"I'm part of a Revolutionary War fife & drum corps. We played at a Houston tea party this morning and are on our way home."

"What's a tea party?" she asked. Seriously, and without rancor.

So I explained about the tea party movement, how we took our symbolism from the original tea party (by this time the girl's mother had joined us and was nodding).

"What are you protesting?" asked the girl (who was blond, I'm sorry to say).

"Out of control government."

"How is the government out of control?" (At this point her mom says, "That's your guy, Obama's doing.")

I explained how the elected officials in Washington were no longer listening to their constituents and were instead "ruling" as they saw fit rather than follow the Constitution.

"Are they really doing that?"

I think her mother was excited that somebody other than her was explaining "how things work" to her clueless daughter. I don't know if I made any headway, but at least she was willing to listen. It's been a while since I watched someone's gears turn so slowly (maybe they're rusty inside that propaganda-filled brain of hers).

It occurs to me that this is how we turn things around--not at huge rallies with thousands of like-minded people, but one-on-one, toe-to-toe with the zombies themselves. It reminds me a little of how the Apostles "turned the world upside-down" in the first century preaching the gospel to any willing audience, but often just to one or two individuals because each and every soul is precious in God's sight!

My letter to the editor re: Governor Perry

October 5, 2010

Kerrville Daily Times

Dear Editor,

After hearing radio ads for Bill White yesterday and seeing the full page ad in today's Times, I felt compelled to respond.

White sounds "folksy" in his radio ads and blasts Perry for cowardice in his newspaper ad. Facts may be obfuscated but are there if one is willing to dig for them:

Under Perry's leadership Texas has become the strongest state in the nation, even during these dire economic times;

There is no "missing money" in the state budget as the Texas Constitution requires a balanced budget and the Republican-led Texas House has kept a balanced budget;

Perry refuses to debate White only until he releases all of his income tax returns for the years he served the Clinton administration in Washington and the state Democratic party chairman (Austin-American Statesman);

White encourages illegal immigration (which is against the law as opposed to legal immigration) as evidenced by policies enacted while he was mayor of Houston (Houston Chronicle);

White has not ruled out raising taxes while Perry has brought about property tax reform that has saved Texans billions;

White is a liberal Democrat, and we've all seen the results of what liberal Democrats do when they are given power (Obama, Pelosi, Reid); Perry is a conservative Republican.

It comes to this: Do you want to keep Texas strong or see her brought down by the proven destruction of tax and spend policies that are bankrupting our nation? I want to keep a thriving Lone Star State so I'm voting for Perry.