Whew! It's good to be home. The Appalachians were bejeweled with amber and rust as we drove all over northwest New Jersey and the Poconos. Everyone we visited seemed the same as always, only slightly older as I'm sure we seemed to them. It was a bit of a project coordinating the visits as everyone wanted us to come to their respective abodes. Because of this, we spent way too much time in the car, making the 13-hour ride home seem like an eternity.
The economy was on everyone's mind, obviously, and it was interesting to listen to democrat relations blaming the republicans and visa-versa. The most interesting aspect to their accusations was an ever-present caveat spoken before they started finger pointing. If a democrat, the friend/relative of mine would say, "I know the democrats are responsible to a certain degree, but those republicans..." and the republicans would say the same. We truly are a country of lesser evils. The one thing they could agree on was that the corporate CEOs are evil along with banks and so forth. The complaints about taxes were evenly distributed. Even the democrats were none-too-happy about their present level of taxation. Of course, neither side wanted to do with less government as we needed to either rob rich people or bomb various ethnicities back to the stone age and not one mentioned any concern about lost liberties. Freedom is, like, soooo last century.
Since on vacation I really tried to avoid financial/political stuff. But it was everywhere. Newspapers were announcing on their front pages that they were endorsing Obama. Television surfing provided flashes of market news. Radio DJs were always joking about McCain between sets (lots of material there). The area was very much for Obama with his signs outnumbering McCain's by about 10 to one. And there were lots of Obama bumper stickers adorning the cars on the highway. So we might have a democratic sweep which will be lots of dark fun writing about until they make political speech illegal. I predict that to happen sometime in February of 2009.
I've got tons of reading to catch up on although truthfully, I don't feel the least bit in the mood. I think I'll go and putter around the house for a while...
