10.23.2007

Breath of Fresh Air Blowin' Through

I was wondering if we'd ever see cooler weather around these parts, but yesterday afternoons's heavy rainstorms brought us the weather that permits me to sit here and write, "It's 56 degrees out!" Finally, a temperature that no longer gives me an excuse to stay inside, letting the yardwork run amok with it's poor neglected self. When Cappy was home, we managed to go out in ten minute increments and clear out a little debris from around the paw-paw trees, pull up the garden weeds, and he cut down tall woody 'weeds' from around the house, but that was it.
Presently, he's on the boat, teaching Asa, one of his young crewmen how to navigate the winding, narrow bayous in the wind. It's not easy...the wind wants to take control of the huge oil barge they are pushing. If you've seen the pictures in past blogs of how narrow some of those bridges are, and know this: slowing down while passing through them, lessens the control. Can you imagine how unnerving it must be for a novice to try keeping his speed up while passing his huge 'camel through the eye of the needle' in heavy winds? To make matters worse, the people who run the bridges are very particular, and who could blame them? If a bridge gets damaged, for whatever reason, not only might the bridge have to shut down for repairs, causing traffic chaos, but it has to be reported to the United States Coast Guard, and ...do you have any idea about all the paperwork and redtape involved with that? Over the phone I can hear Cappy encouraging the young man, telling him what a great job he is doing, and even calling him, proudly, "Captain Asa", even tho, of course, as of yet, he doesn't have his captain's license. No wonder whenever there's an opening, Cappy's phone is ringing off the wall with 'guys' wanting to come be part of his crew. What can I say...Cappy's a nice man.
Good men are hard to find. Cappy and I went to the polls and voted for someone we think is a good man. We are thrilled that he was elected outright as our new governor. I say 'outright', because in Louisiana, if the individual running for office doesn't get at least 51% of the votes, there has to be a 'run-off', and it's my humble opinion that, perhaps, that's where dirty politics gets to put it's sticky paws in and foul up the final results. Again, I'm just (still) a Yankee, and new to all of this, don't know all the intricate workings of how Louisiana politics works, but something has 'stunk in Denmark' around here, politically speaking, for some time, so that's one of my simplistic opinions of that matter. And so to that, I lift my coffee cup and toast our new governor-elect, Bobby Jindal, and say, "Here, here!...Go sic 'em boy! You have our prayers and God knows, you'll need 'em."

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