We Call It "Mud Season" (New Hampshire and the 2016 GOP field)

[WilliamPitt]

The first of many dispatches to come from the Granite State. -- wrp



Senator Ted Cruz at the First In Nation Republican Leadership Summit in Nashua, New Hampshire.
(Photo: Michael Vadon/Flickr)

We Call It "Mud Season"
By William Rivers Pitt
Truthout | Op-Ed

Tuesday 21 April 2015

Here in New Hampshire, we call this "Mud Season." It is, in short, the phase between when the snowpack melts and the ground un-freezes, and then firms up again until the next thaw after the next winter. The streams run roaring over the rocks as the meltwater feeds their fury, the wind makes the leafless trees dance, and the yard whose green grass you'll enjoy in a month will sink you to the ankle if you step on it, boots or otherwise.

If you live on a paved road, with sidewalks and streetlights and all the comforts of town living, you're fine and dandy. For those of us who live on dirt roads, however, Mud Season is decidedly sporty. See, mud is far more dangerous than ice or snow. In winter, the snowpack - combined with the concerted efforts of the town's plowmen - make safe the road. So long as you don't stomp the brakes and know the contours, you can fly at a hot clip beneath the eaves of snow-bound boughs.

Not so in Mud Season, entirely because of warm days and cold nights. The warm days lead to snowmelt, which happily delivers an ocean of water into the ground, but disintegrates the hard-packed road into goo. This brown, graveled mush gets deeply rutted by passing vehicles, and those ruts freeze into proud arches during the still-cold nights, slowly becoming pudding as the sun grows broad on the pine-shaded road in the mornings. Once melted, that pudding is slick as oil, while the ruts remain.

When you traverse an expanse of Mud Season road, the ruts have a way of snaring your front wheels and setting you askew. Thanks to the slickness of the route, when the ruts choose to flick you into the woods - at any speed, mind you - the slippery surface will help you directly into the most available tree. Here in New Hampshire, people look forward to Mud Season the way the rest of the planet looks forward to radical root canal.

Which brings me to the Republican Leadership Summit that took place in Nashua over the weekend. Among the luminaries present were Ted Cruz, Donald Trump, Carly Fiorina, Lindsey Graham, Mike Huckabee, Chris Christie, Bobby Jindal, John Kasich, Marco Rubio, Rick Perry, Rand Paul and Jeb Bush.

Mud Season.

One would think any sane and fair-minded culture would gift some form of award to a state required to tolerate so many human catastrophes in one swallow. A tax break, a sports stadium, a bottle of whiskey to every person of woman born. The state motto is "Live Free Or Die." If this kind of mayhem confluence forms again, town councils from Lake Francis to Keene will be fielding heated requests from all and sundry to change the state motto to "Live Free And Kill Me Now."

The rest: http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/30325-we-call-it-mud-season

[TheCowsCameHome]

1. The first vegetable has popped up from the muck