An unusually pleasant day in the remote Midwest (aka RedNeckLand) [View all]

[IrishAyes]

I bellyache often enough about things in this tiny backwater town in the remote Midwest, thereby obligating myself to give compliments when due as well. This is one of those times.

Had a fine time Tuesday morning. What started out as a simple errand for myself and an even more elderly friend turned into what passes for adventure around here. In trash picking, I mean. It was trash day and when I drove past a marvelous, huge mahogany desk at the curb toward the middle of town, I pulled up and immediately removed all the drawers to make it less appealing to someone else who might appear later.

But my friend's small car did have room for the drawers; on the way home I stopped at the library to pick up a ton of discontinued books I'd bought on Monday and had been unable to carry home on foot. Since there were several other folks there, I piped up and wondered aloud if anyone knew somebody with a pickup truck, a soft heart, and a strong back.

Well, the library employee I like best (we would be friends if our paths crossed more often) said she'd driven her truck in to work and she'd take her lunch break right then to help me. How nice is that?!

You haven't lived until you've seen two 5' tall little old ladies wrestle a 100-lb-+ conference-room size desk onto a pickup bed. But we did it and got it home on the ground outside my front gate while keeping all our fingers and toes. Then I called a husky fellow from church, knowing he has 2 even bigger sons, and asked him to come over after dinner to wrestle it onto my front porch. It would never fit inside these narrow doors, but it works fine as a plant stand for shade plants behind the lattice. Nobody can see much of anything on the wraparound porch due to all the spirea surrounding it.

The knee well makes a fine outdoor dog house too, not that my furkids need it. But it's there. Removing everything else to make room was a very hard job but still well worth it. Then all the heavy plant pots had to be put back again. I'm sore and still tired today, but the project did turn out rather stunning, I think. I'm not a person who can live w/o lots and lots and lots of plants. Imagine the fun of dragging them all indoors for the winter and then back out again the following spring - still worth it to me.

And I'm deeply grateful for the help of those kind people, w/o whom the whole thing would've been impossible. One's a wingnut, true enough; but he has certain good qualities too. The library friend wouldn't dare say so aloud because she could lose her job, but I get the feeling she's at least somewhat sympathetic to progressive causes. With all the loud teabaggers around here in RedNeckLand, and the near-silence of liberals, it stunned me to see that even when he was up for re-election, President Obama got almost 30% of the votes in a remote county where there are NO blacks. So it wasn't even possibly due to racial loyalties. I would've been surprised at 10%. God bless him, he deserves 100%.

Please don't anyone latch onto that last sentence to start a quarrel. I just felt that under the circumstances it needed to be said. Sometimes the people around here can be surprisingly nice. True, a lot of them are the opposite to a very dangerous degree; but I don't want it to make me as sour and mean as they are and not give the nicer ones a chance. It felt good beyond all reason to be treated so well.

Only problem now is that I owe at least the next two or three who really tick me off a free pass, not for their sake but for mine, because I know how easily I can go to war with them. Where's the challenge in that?