Friday 15 August 2008

Who's gun is this?



This vehicle was sitting outside the pizza place last night. What you can't see is the sub machine gun mounted on the roof and written on the magazine case was "Big Mac, For Iraq" Now I ask you to balance the paradox of this vehicle, licenced and taxed, and me being pulled up in Dallas airport because, when asked about the long slim package I was carrying, the way my English accent pronounced "Boom" to the southern ear apparently sounded like "bomb"... Okay a small misunderstanding but soon sorted out, indeed the woman with the rubber gloves was surprisingly gentle.

Yet running around in the mid west is this perky little bren gun.

This is one of the reasons I like the USA. Another is a hidden but definately real sense of self depreciation which no one talks about but I know is there. I know this because the grandly named "Bridge of the Gods", which spans the Gorge, is about the same size as a foot bridge in Ross on Wye.

Yesterday we sailed and it blew! In the middle of the day we had to tie the boats to trees. It must have hit 30knots, but the water was warm and little beats burning around in fast boats with your mates. In the afternoon we did slalom courses set by Rohan Veal, now part time race officer. At the end of the day it was lighter and the breeze turned off around six, which is about the same time everyone goes to bed.

Today I dont know if it's windy or not but it's forecast to be over 100 degrees and I would imagine that might have some effect on this katabatic place.

Day one, and the first North American Foiler Moth titles begins!

4 comments:

Tillerman said...

Oh dude, where do I begin?

1. Oregon is not normally considered part of the mid west.

2. Americans have no tradition of self deprecation/ depreciation. If they appear to be boasting, it is not ironic; they really are boasting.

3. The Bridge of the Gods is actually named after a landslide (act of god?) which blocked the gorge a few centuries ago.

4. Crazy foreigners who say "BOOM" when asked at an airport what is in a mysterious package deserve everything they get. They heard precisely what you said.

5. The American constitution gives Americans the "right to bear arms" just in case they need to overthrow the government again. Seeing as the last time they had a revolution it was all about a tax on tea, I fail to understand why they haven't had another one since.

Anonymous said...

Your youngest son just completed his first event, and won his first protest for redress.
The weather was blowing old boots for a couple of days, we didn't have to tie the opi to a tree though, as it had formed a perfect sand dune. We had to dig it out this morning, only the cover was showing!
father like son??
Boys want to know if you can bring the geep home.
V

Anonymous said...

Hay dad did the man start robbing the pizza plase

Joe Bousquet said...

Hi Simon:

Thnaks for your thoughts, eagar to get results. BTW, the Bridge of the Gods is named after a geological event: a landslide that completely crossed the gorge, as I explained in this post.