SmeltzerNation

Wild Hog in West VA

2012-07-17T17:36:00.001-07:00

The author prepared for his adventure

Wild Hog in West VA

By Quentin Smeltzer

Biker culture means different things to different people and its meaning has changed over the years. What hasn't changed is the feeling of exhilaration I feel every time I get on two wheels. Whether it was on my Suzuki 185 Enduro when I was a teenager, or the 2012 Street Glide I took possession of three weeks ago now at the very young age of 56, it doesn't matter. It's still a thrill every time I swing a leg over.

For years I resisted the siren call of Harley, buying instead a succession of second-hand Japanese and British bikes, each with their own particular charm. There was the Suzuki Savage 650 that reconnected me to motorcycling after a twenty year hiatus. The "Thumper" was a rat bike if ever there was one, especially by the time I was finished with it. This was my Orange County Choppers phase and I cut and stripped and spray painted that thing until it looked like a flat black refugee from one of the Mad Max movies. Good times!

I sold that bike for no more than it was worth and bought a second-hand Honda SuperHawk. If the Suzuki was too slow, the Hawk was too fast. I felt perfectly comfortable on the Honda doing 110 miles per hour, watching the cars zip by my shoulders and disappear into my rear view mirrors on the highway; and these were the cars traveling in my direction! It finally occurred to me that one should not feel comfortable at 110 miles per hour passing cars like they were frozen in time. So I sold the SuperHawk and bought a much more sensible Triumph America.

The Triumph was comfortable and had that British cool thing going for it, but after a few long trips with my Harley buddies I noticed I had to wring the 790 cc motor's neck to get it to go and I had to absolutely stand on the brakes to get it to stop. Plus it still wasn't "American iron."

Performance trumped patriotism however, when I spotted a gorgeous, cardinal red Suzuki SV650 at my local dealer. It had low miles, a Yoshimura exhaust and a very friendly price tag. When the dealer fired it up right there on the showroom and I heard that motor wind up with a snarl and then settle into a menacing purr, it was a done deal. They got the Triumph and I got the SV, and a nice check to go with it.

Now I had a back roads carver, a bike that was an absolute blast to haul through Connecticut back roads, but again there was the matter of trips to Americade and Laconia with the Harley buddies. They thought I was joking when I wanted to stop after each and every hour of travel and I wanted to cry after each and every fifty minutes or so of dealing with a bone hard seat and aching wrists. Aftermarket remedies did not help.

I thought a lot about Harley but the economy, family and jobs situation kept that out of reach. Instead I found a good compromise: a 2007 Kawasaki VN1600 Mean Streak. This bike was certainly the closest I had ever come to having it all: a measure of performance, comfort, and power. The bike would go, it would stop, and you could hustle it down a back road, although it was certainly no SV650.

I took the Meanie on a long trip to Tennessee to ride the Tail of Dragon with the Harley buddies and it was a pretty good tourer. But still, the low fuel light came on at 110 miles and it was high drama by 150 miles. At that distance, the Harley guys were just warming up. And truth to tell, even on the Kawasaki, an hour of riding still had me wishing for a break.

That was last year. This year I got the word from the Harley buddies: we were all riding to a HOG rally in West Virginia. That's HOG as in Harley Owners Group. I was going, of course, but I really wasn't looking forward to being tied and sushi'd in the back woods of West VA. Scenes from Deliverance haunted my dreams...

I started beefing up the Kawasaki with a trunk bolted to my luggage rack, highway bars and foot pegs for the bars. Still, I couldn't help wandering into a local Harley dealership just to sort of, look around... I noticed the Switchback looked small to me. After ten minutes no one spoke to me, so I left.

Now there were just a few weeks left before the West VA trip. I was riding with one of the Harley buddies when we just happened to end up at Yankee Harley in Bristol, CT. My buddy rides some kind of Ultra Heritage Chromeulous Classic or something like that that costs more than I've ever paid for a car. I sat on a lot of bikes at the Harley dealership but none fit my hands or my eye like the Street Glide. Still, the price... We are talking more than three times as much as I had ever paid for a bike in my life. But wouldn't it be something to buy a new Street Glide? I knew that it would.

I left the dealership with the salesman trailing me calling out lower numbers. Evidently these weren't the bad old Harley days when bikes sold more than list price. These guys wanted to deal. I thought about it. I discussed it with my wife. We both agreed it made no sense to take on what would amount to another car payment when I had a perfectly good bike in the garage, already paid for. The Harley dealer continued to call and I continued to work the numbers in my head. Maybe...

When they hit the number I had in mind for a brand new 2012 Glide in Vivid Black with cruise control, my resolve and common sense melted away. I explained to my wife that there are many times when the heart overrules the head and this was one of them. After all, if there weren't such moments, I probably wouldn't be married. I am sure now that my heart had it right when I said "I do" and I am beginning to think my heart had it right this time too.

The Street Glide has power, comfort, range, stopping power, cruise control, the bat wing fairing, the gauges, and that unmistakable rumble, even with the relatively muffled standard pipes. Evidently you still get what you pay for. Not to mention membership in the HOG club and a free tee shirt! Buddy, I was so in!

There was one slight problem. There was the issue about the guy I had invited to the HOG rally largely because he rides a Star and I wanted some metric companionship. I would have to break the news to him gently that I had gone over to the orange and black side. But he's a good buddy, comfortable in his own skin and, oh yeah, 72 years old! He doesn't give a shiitake mushroom what anybody else is riding.

So the plan was set: Ultra Harley buddy Ralph, Star-riding 72-year-old Joe and brand new Harley tribe member I, would ride from CT to Western PA to spend a first Sunday night at Ralph's brother's house. Simultaneously a couple of our Harley buds would start riding south from the Toronto area, while yet another contingent would start riding north from Naples, FL. The following day, Monday, I would ride west to Ohio to see my 80 year old mom. Ralph, brother John and Joe would tour West PA. On Wednesday, all of us would rendezvous in Snowshoe, West VA for the rally.

There are riding stories in the movies and in magazine articles and then there is riding in the real world. In the movies everything goes wrong and the situation gets worse and worse until suddenly there is a happy ending. In motorcycle magazine stories it seems nothing ever goes wrong. The real world is somewhere in between...

Now, the good news is that Joe only ran out of gas once and crashed once that first day. The running out of gas was interesting. Before we left on our trip I asked Joe, yet again, to observe the "two second staggered formation" rule. He assured me that he would. I think Joe may need the rule re-explained to him at some point however, because instead of riding in left, right, left formation roughly two seconds behind one another, Joe seems to think the formation means he can drop half a mile back, and then run up on my tail and then pass me and then drop back another mile, all within the space of twenty minutes riding. Me, you will find two or three seconds and half a lane staggered off Ralph's rear wheel. That's just the way it is.

So when Joe disappeared in my rear view mirrors after we passed some semi-truck traffic I was unconcerned. You know about Joe and shiitakes and frankly, that attitude is contagious.

A few more miles wound off the odometer and I was as happy as a clam, although why clam happiness is assumed is beyond me. Even with 200 miles showing on my trip B odometer since our last fill up, I still had a third of tank of 91 octane left to burn! Nice!

We were coming up to a fork in the freeway and I was wondering how that might impact Joe when I saw his blazing three lights reappear and rapidly grow in my mirrors. Suddenly he was next to me. I looked over and found him wide eyed and slapping his gas tank, the sign we had all agreed would mean it was time to stop for gas.

I gestured forward to Ralph as if to say to Joe, there's our leader right there, go up and signal your need to stop to him, but Joe fell back behind me instead. Sigh. I thought about waiting for Joe to figure this out but something about the look of alarm in his eyes changed my mind. I pulled up next to Ralph, signaled we needed to stop, and then took the lead to make sure it happened.

The next exit had gas so I took us off the highway and then about a mile up a side road to a Sheetz filling station. There, Joe told his story. He began by looking at me and cracking, "You need to look in your rear view mirrors once in a while."

I said nothing.

"I ran out of gas!" he continued.

"You actually ran out?" I asked.

"Yes! It started to sputter and then I couldn't find the reserve! So I had to stop. I got it on reserve and then of course, I didn't want to ride too fast to catch you guys because I was on reserve!"

So this was my fault. Hmm... That he didn't know how to turn on his own reserve, never rides in formation so I might have had a clue there was something wrong when he dropped out of it, or didn't think that maybe it was a good idea to catch us and lead us to a filling station once he found his reserve switch: all, clearly, signs of bad judgement on my part. Ralph, meanwhile, was still not entirely sure why we had stopped.

"Oh well," Ralph said. "Might as well gas up here. My brother lives just another fifty miles from here."

"That's good," said Joe, "because I can't ride anymore."

I took mental note of this comment, but Joe got back on his bike, and, really, he didn't have a great deal of choice. It was hot, we were baked and we'd already covered almost 400 miles, but the day was nearly over. I figured we'd be ok.

After another half hour on the interstate we pulled onto a secondary highway. Then we began the process of finding John's place, meandering through the beautiful green hills of Western PA. We rode through Latrobe, saw the Arnold Palmer Airport, a gorgeous, castle like monastery, and many other delightful, pastoral sights.

Ralph missed a turn so we had to make a u-turn. Joe makes very wide u-turns, but God bless him, he's still wrestling an 800 pound bike on a 400 mile day in his seventh decade. I hope I have half that strength sixteen years from now. Still, I can do a 720 in the time and space it takes him to do a 180, so I made my turn and tucked in behind Ralph once again. We came upon a narrow intersection and Ralph made a right. I did the same but I was surprised by how sharply I had to turn to keep from straying into the oncoming lane. I had to pull the clutch and the brake, downshift twice to first, nearly stop the bike dead in its tracks and then power away smoothly.

As I drove off I checked my mirrors for Joe. I saw his lights make the turn, but then they seemed to not advance. I looked again. Joe was clearly not advancing.

I honked my horn several times to get Ralph's attention and saw him make eye contact with me in his mirror. Then I turned my bike around in a driveway and hustled back to help Joe.

I've come to the "rescue" before so I knew the first instinct is to park your own bike anywhere and jump off to rush to your friend's aid. With a loaded Street Glide easily weighing 850 pounds, this could be a big mistake. It could easily result in a second bike drop, or worse.

I scanned the stopped cars, concerned bystanders and surrounding pavement to locate a path to a safe spot to drop my stand. I carefully lowered the "Jiffy Stand" which consistently freaks me out. It always feels like it is giving way and never looks strong enough to support such a heavy machine. With my bike safely parked, I hurried to Joe.

Joe was ok, standing, and a group of bystanders were helping him right his bike. They got it up just as I reached them and I helped them steady the bike. Joe inspected the highway lights where the bike hit the pavement. There were a few minor scratches, nothing more. Since his focus was on the bike, I didn't think to ask if he was ok. He seemed to be. There were two wet spots on the ground and I could smell gasoline.

Joe tried to start the bike but it wouldn't go. We were still standing in the middle of the street, stopping traffic in four directions. Someone suggested we push the bike off the road and we agreed that was a good idea. Someone who obviously was not a motorcyclist suggested pushing it to a spot I could see would be difficult for Joe to back out of, but I could see we did need to get out of the road.

We started pushing but the bike rocked back on us. "I got it," said Joe, realizing the bike wouldn't start because it was in gear. He sat on the seat, hit the starter and after turning over a few times the bike barked back into life.

"You ok?" I asked Joe over the engine.

"Yah, I'm fine," he replied. He put the bike in gear.

"I'm sorry," said a woman bystander. She must have been the one driving the car that forced Joe to make the tight turn to stay in his own lane.

"No, I'm sorry," said Joe, and he rode off slowly.

I got on my bike, swung around when the traffic allowed and followed.

About an eighth of a mile down the road we found Ralph pulled over, waiting for us. Joe and I both pulled over to wait for Ralph to resume lead duties.

"What happened?" said Ralph, but I was lip reading; I really couldn't hear him over the sound of our three motors. I didn't feel like shouting "Joe fell down" or something to that effect over the noise, so I just gestured "Let's go" to Ralph instead.

Ralph pulled out and we resumed our ride. A short time later we reached John's house. John is a Catholic priest with a four bedroom house and several refrigerators full of steaks and beer and a couple of humidors filled with cigars; what's not to like? He's got a BMW touring motorcycle and a CVO Harley. He's got a Beemer Z4 sports car and every other kind of gadget and improvement available. He treated us to the aforementioned beer and stogies along with salad and fresh corn on the cob. And did I mention the beer? Oh yeah, there was beer. John is so nice and lives so well the church should use him for recruitment. Join the priesthood and you too can live the dream! In truth John is the sweetest guy you could imagine and obviously his whole focus in life is on serving and taking care of others. If he gets a few toys and some nice cuisine out of the deal, God bless.

After our 450 mile day on the highways under the blazing sun followed by steaks and beers and good cigars it was time to turn catatonic. John's was the perfect place to collapse, which I did, blissfully and early.

In the morning I had to get up and get going. My plan was to visit my mother who lives near my sister in Lancaster, Ohio. As much as I like riding with a group it is equally a treat to ride alone. There are moments when you wish your buds were there to see some amazing view or to share a surprise, or rarely, to help you out of a jam, but it is also nice to go where you want to go the way you want to get there, not to mention stopping when you want to stop without explanation or apology.

I had suffered no ill effects from the first day's ride except a couple of stripes of sunburn on my upper biceps. I had worn a wicking shirt and a Shift ballistic nylon jacket with the sleeves zipped off and stored in my saddlebags. I had applied sunscreen up to the sleeves of my shirt, but I hadn't taken into account that the wind would blow them up revealing two more inches of unprotected skin. For day two, before setting out, I stripped off my shirt and applied sunscreen from the back of my hands all the way to my forehead.

I started out around 7:30 am but I was headed in the wrong direction. I had to ride 50 miles east first to Zepka Harley Davidson in Johnstown, PA, to get my 1,000 mile service. I had 1,050 on the odometer at the time and I would have 2,700 miles by the time I got home to CT. I had picked Zepka out at random from an internet search and stuck with that choice even when I realized they were 50 miles out of my way. I just had a good feeling about the place talking to the service manager, Ron, on the phone. Zepka was great. They did the work quickly, well and inexpensively. They even gave me a free ride to a restaurant where I got a good breakfast and started writing this story over free coffee refills. Then it was off to Ohio for real.

Since the trip was almost entirely due west this would mean a lot more riding into the sun. And it was hot. And cloudless. And almost 11:30 by now.

My first instinct was to get on the interstate, which I did, but I grew tired of that pretty quickly. Instead, I told my gps to avoid highways. The device immediately took me off the highway and onto beautiful, narrow, winding, country lanes. Maybe too winding. The terrain was hilly and my gps was taking me southwest. I'm not sure what it was thinking although it must have had something to do with finding a crossing over the Ohio River that wasn't the bridge on I-70 at Wheeling.

The back roads were ridiculously narrow in places and they climbed and plunged, frequently with turns requiring 15 miles per hour or less. The Street Glide is a big machine but it handles well and the engine pulls all day long like a locomotive. Fortunately, too, I am an experience rider. Not Ewan McGregor experienced, but I've ridden 10,000 miles on two wheels every year for the past twelve. And that doesn't count the dirt biking I did as a kid. That's enough saddle time to know what I'm doing.

Still, when I saw the signs warning or "Fresh Chips and Oil" I was not pleased. In case you are wondering, this wasn't announcing the availability of some tasty snack up ahead; this was informing me that the narrow, twisty, mountain road I was on was also, for the foreseeable future, covered in a fresh coating of wet tar oil and loose gravel. Okay then...

Still, I soldiered on as I appeared to be in the proverbial middle of nowhere with not a lot of choice. The hills were beautiful, as were the fields and the mountains when the vistas opened. Little tar-paper shacks and half collapsed houses dotted the road from time to time. Occasionally I would drive though a "town" consisting of three or four houses clustered together and perhaps an abandoned gas pump. Did I mention the six gallon tank on the Street Glide and mileage approaching 50 per? Wonderful!

But eventually the dust and the work effort grew to be too much, especially as I also did not seem to be making any real progress towards Lancaster. I arrived at something looking like a real town and filled up with gasoline, Gatorade and 5-Hour Energy. Then I told the gps, I surrender; do not avoid highways. The gps immediately put me on I-79 North! I rode twenty miles straight north only to find myself back on I-70 West, still very much in Pennsylvania and still riding under and into a broiling sun.

Finally I came to the bridge that crosses the Ohio River and sailed across it, feeling pretty good about things all in all. That feeling came to an abrupt halt when I saw the construction and the miles-long line of traffic ground to a halt in a single lane leading up the hill into Ohio.

No problem; I was ready for a change, so I told my Garmin to avoid highways once again and immediately got off I-70. The gps took me a few miles north and then through a small town with a lot of red lights. I've heard Harley's can overheat but mine has the new feature where the engine drops to firing on just one cylinder when stopped to help cool the engine. You can hear and feel it when it drops to one cylinder and the technology seems to work because I had no issues. Soon enough I was climbing into the hills heading west again.

Now I was on 250 West in Ohio, a great motorcycle road, filled with sport bikes enjoying the high plateau sweepers. It was pure joy to find this road. On and on it went and I stopped only once or twice for hydration or an energy bar. Then it turned into 22-West and the great times continued. Eventually though, I encountered I-77. The gps said to head south. I was hoping this was the highway that would take me to Lancaster, but no such luck. Soon I was back onto I-70 West for another grueling stint directly into the merciless sun. Two-wheeled suffering at its best. If you've done it, you know what I mean.

Finally my gps relented and put me onto 13 South which soon turned into 188 West which took me to my mom's house. It was a blast racing through farmland on a two lane country road. But looking at a map now I see I could have stayed on 22 West and travelled southwest all the way to Lancaster! Note to self: next time open up a map, buddy! Gps will get you there, but you never know where you are or what you might be missing!

The visit with my mom was bitter sweet; she isn't doing very well. But I was grateful that my bike and this trip afforded the opportunity to see her.

Wednesday morning I got up, packed and left for West Virginia and my first ever HOG rally. Visions of burnouts and wild women danced in my head, but, being fifty six, married, and knowing my friends as I do, going to bed at 10 pm after a beer and a cigar was far more likely to be in the cards.

For this leg of the trip I actually had looked at a map the evening before. I used Google Maps on my iPad. From that study I knew I wanted 33 South to 50 East to 79 South. The trip really needn't be more complicated than that. There was, however, this intriguing bit of winding mountain road off of 50 down to West VA's 33 if I dared take it after my Oil and Chips adventures in Ohio. I thought it said it was route 119 but that proved to be wrong. It was 18 South.

I set off enjoying the civilized roar of my stock Harley, the wind, the sun, and the largely empty freeways. What was less enjoyable was the periodic kick in the kidneys some Ohio highways delivered. I don't know if these were frost heaves, pavement joints or what, but note to Ohio and a few other states: highways should not have speed bumps. I'm just saying...

I made the turn from 33 South to 50 East and motored on. The sun beat straight down. 50 was more of a freeway and less of a highway than I would have preferred. I love cruise control in a car and found it every bit as valuable on my Street Glide. I turned on the stereo and listened to Dwight Yoakum holler soulfully about being 1,000 miles from nowhere:

"I'm a thousand miles from nowhere

Time don't matter to me.

I'm a thousand miles from nowhere

And there's no place I'd rather be..."

Sweet. 50 East grew monotonous however and I looked with desire upon the rolling green hills to my right. I knew that if I got off the highway too soon I could get tangled up in a morass of back-hills twisties that would consume my day without moving me closer to my destination. And my tricky gps had already been known to insist I travel on a road that turned to dirt and then to deeply rutted and washed out dirt. Wrestling an 820 pound Harley into a 180 on a rutted dirt road is a little too much drama for me, thanks just the same.

I held out a while longer and then, just feeling that the time was right, I told the gps to avoid highways once again. I felt good about the result immediately. The gps said I should do another 20 miles on 50 before getting off. Just as interesting, my expected arrival time had not appreciably changed. Taking a backroads diagonal to Snowshoe instead of driving miles east on 50 and then miles more back southwest on 79 should have had that effect.

The gps took me off on route 18 where I was hoping it would say 119, but that's only because I can't read a map properly. 18 was exactly the road I wanted. Once again I was tooling and roaring through mountain roads adorned with gorgeous vistas and punctuated by rich farms and poor hovels.

I ate at a Subway and arrived at Snowshoe at about 3:30 pm. My room wasn't ready but they asked me to pay the balance on it, which I did. I learned that to register for the rally I was to drive to the top of the mountain, seven miles up Snowshoe Drive, to the ski resort. I spent my high school years in Utah driving cars on the roads to Alta and Snowbird, Big Cottonwood Canyon and Little Cottonwood Canyon, roads and peaks that would get your attention, so I was not a bit intimidated by this short, mountain ride.

I was surprised by the cold however. I shouldn't have been; the temperature always drops when you climb. Still I wondered about the wisdom of having a Harley rally in such a cool environment. I signed into the rally and returned down the mountain, using engine drag to handle most of the braking chores.

The other guys had arrived by now. There was Joe, John and Ralph, Barry and Steve from Florida and Lou and Larry from Canada. The gang was all assembled.

We ate dinner at a place down the road and I went for a two mile run followed by a dip in the hot tub. Not bad. And then I joined the guys for a beer and a cigar by the front doors of the inn.

The next day was a 200 mile romp through the mountains led by our resident speed demon, Steve. Steve was riding a gorgeous, new CVO Street Glide that would have been even more gorgeous if Barry hadn't ridden into the back of it on the way here. Whoops! Could happen to anybody.

I was feeling the need for speed myself, so, after the first leg of our trip, I negotiated my way into the number two spot behind our leader. The big Harley is certainly no sport bike; you never feel like you're standing on your front wheel, steering with the throttle and the rear wheel, but the big girl can hustle.

At the end of the day we rode back up the mountain to check out the rally, but frankly, there wasn't much going on. We wandered around a bit but failed to find the bar that would honor our two free beer tickets. In truth, we were tired from another day on the road; we didn't try very hard.

We rode back down off the mountain and set about finding a Thursday night dinner. There was a little barbecue place in a trailer in the Inn's parking lot called Woodys Bar B Q Shack. And we could buy cases of cold beer from a shop across the street. Perfect. Maybe it was the altitude or the fatigue, but the pulled pork sandwich, slaw and fries were some of the best I've ever eaten. The dinner set me back all of $6 and I don't think I've ever had a better meal. This was my idea of Wild Hog!

I did my nightly run and hot tub combo, and then met the guys for a few toasts over a couple of shots of cold Giro tequila. Good stuff. And that was about it. No burnouts, no wild women. We didn't rob any liquor stores that I can remember. Just a lot of great riding with some good friends. There was still the matter of getting home, however.

Now, when I invited Joe to join me on this adventure, mostly because he is a good friend and part of the group, but partly so I wouldn't be the only metric guy at the rally, a couple of things had happened. Joe had agreed to come but simultaneously he had invited himself to share my room in Snowshoe and then accompany him to Chantilly, Virginia, to spend a day visiting his son, Kip. Like a dummy, without much thought, I had said yes.

At some point I realized that instead of riding with Ralph and John back to John's comfortable house where I would have my own bedroom, and all that great food and drink, not to mention the Western PA riding which I had missed when I went to Ohio, I would be riding to the congested Washington DC area to sleep on some kid's floor. This realization displeased me and I voiced my concerns to Joe. Joe insisted that Kip had riding buddies who would take us on some great rides and implied that I would have a bed to sleep in. So what the heck; off to Chantilly we rode Friday morning in a light, cool rain.

There was another problem, however. While packing up my bike to leave West VA, somehow my rain pants had disappeared. I looked everywhere to no avail. The only conclusion I could draw was that I had dropped them and someone had decided to keep them. I checked with the front desk but no one had turned them in. So I was dressed in my camping pants, which I usually wear on long trips instead of jeans. The nylon material wicks moisture and they are much more comfortable on long rides. They are also quite thin; good for hot days. They would be totally useless if I ever hit the pavement but I figured jeans wouldn't be a lot better. I also put on my electric vest--a total life saver--and my rain jacket, which I had managed to keep track of. And off we went.

We climbed through the mountains in the steady drizzle. Despite the electric vest keeping my core warm, my legs were soon freezing. Finally I couldn't take it anymore and pulled to the side of the mountain road. I changed my wet socks and put on my second pair of camping pants over the first pair. I upgraded my gloves from summer gloves to my winters, clicked up the vest another notch, and off we went once again.

We had taken 219 North to 250 West which would take us to Waynesboro and the base of the Skyline Drive. The rain had stopped before Waynesboro once we had dropped out of the mountains and I was comfortable once again. We stopped at a gas station/Subway sandwich shop combo and fueled up the bikes and ourselves. Then we followed 250 through and out of Waynesboro until we found the entrance to the Skyline Drive.

We paid our $10 to enter but Joe took a long time at the booth. I figured he was arguing for a cheaper entrance price--you can have a real debate over who is cheaper, Joe or me. But it turns out he was pumping the ranger for information.

We drove the skyline which is majestic in its beauty. Something about being on a road in the middle of all that mountain wilderness is stirring. I had ridden the Skyline before but I had forgotten how hypnotic the drive is. I feared it was putting me to sleep so I cranked up the tunes a bit on the stereo--sacrilegious in that wilderness, I know, but better than driving off the road.

We finally pulled off at route 211 East, and made our way to the house where Kip rents a room in Chantilly. There was a bit more gps controversy as I had avoid highways still switched on, and Joe was convinced we had gone the wrong way, but after some spirited riding through some gorgeous Virginia farm country, now mostly converted to country estates, we arrived safe and sound.

After a day of chilling and checking out the amazingly large space shuttle at the Air and Space museum at Dulles Airport, but no promised riding, we set off for home on Sunday the 15th. I don't think Kip understood why I let his 72 year old father sleep on the floor while I took the bed and Kip got the couch upstairs, but Joe insisted he was fine and, hey, an implied deal is still a kind of a deal...

There was rain in the forecast but low and behold I had found my rain pants in the bottom of one of my duffels. Joe chided me for assuming theft, and really, I might need to upgrade my opinion of humanity just a notch.

We rode off in hot, humid weather with storm clouds on the horizon up ahead. When the road shifted north it looked like we might avoid them but when it veered back east we were headed into their maw. To avoid 95 we had decided to take 50 West to 15 North. The plan was to ultimately get on 287 which would take us to 84 East across the Newburgh Bridge, avoiding much of the traffic around the New York City area.

The ride up 15 was pleasant and we detoured into Gettysburg and saw some of the sights as we navigated to a McDonald's for a cup of coffee and a bio break. Then we forged on. The weather continued to threaten and the sky darkened and then I could smell the unmistakable smell of summer rain. And then the rain hit.

We pulled over at a truck stop and donned our rain gear. Joe said maybe we wouldn't see any more rain since we'd gone to the trouble of struggling into our rain suits but no such luck. It continued to rain. And then it started raining hard.

I always say that riding in rain is fine as long as I'm not freezing and I can see. I wasn't cold but visibility was becoming a problem. I could barely make out Joe's taillight through the heavy downpour. The rain streamed down my face and into my jacket and my pants. Traffic was heavy and cars and trucks passed us.

Then a new problem reared its head. My eyes began to sting. The pain became intense. I was literally growling in pain, squeezing my eyes closed and then opening them, hoping to blink away the maddening irritant. I can only guess it was my sunscreen running into my eyes. Whatever it was the pain was nearly unbearable. It also meant that not only were we dealing with fifty feet of visibility, but half the time my eyes were closed!

Fortunately Joe pulled over at an overpass. There were already four bikes there and a group of riders waiting out the rain. Our bikes wouldn't fit under the bridge so we maneuvered them as best we could on the shoulder away from the traffic and got ourselves, at least, out of the rain.

There I was able to clear my burning eyes.

We talked bikes and our travels with the other riders while we waited out the rain. Two of them were riding two-up on 2012 Street Glide exactly like mine except that it was Denim Black instead of Vivid Black. For those of you who don't know, that meant it was flat black instead of gloss black. I had preferred the Vivid Black at the showroom but that Denim Black Street Glide looked awfully good covered in rain drops...

The skies cleared a bit and we decided to push on. There was the very scary business of rejoining the heavily trafficked highway from a standing stop on the shoulder on wet pavement but that went smoothly and we were both on our way once again.

The ride was uneventful until Joe's EZ Pass wouldn't register at the toll booth after the Newburgh Bridge and he had to fish $1.50 out of his wet riding clothes. I was in another lane and mistakenly thought he was with another group of riders I saw up ahead so I took off to the catch them. Only when I caught them, no Joe.

I stopped at the rest area on the big hill on 84 just before Danbury and waited. Sure enough, Joe came toodling along and I rejoined him. I was happy I waited; I had promised Joe to have his back on this trip and really didn't want to explain to his wife that he had vanished just thirty miles short of home.

We rode through Danbury as traffic predictably slowed on 84. This was the only unavoidable traffic we had seen this entire trip. The stop and go was tolerable, but only just so, on the Harley. There were multiple accidents in the wet conditions on 84 and we could see the lights of many emergency vehicles on the highway up ahead. I finally had had my fill and I ditched 84 at exit 9 and blissfully took 25 to the back roads that lead to my house.

Joe made it too and I called him soon after. He thanked me for a great trip and I thanked him. He asked if still owed me for half of the room in West Virginia and I said, "Yep."

"Yep," he echoed, as if he was hoping for some other response.

We had had a great time, we had made it home safely and we were still friends. You can't do better than that. Only, I'm still not sure which one of us is cheaper.

Centrist

2011-11-08T05:45:00.000-08:00

Centrist

by Quentin Smeltzer

My good, conservative friend recently sent me one of those emails detailing how Obama is destroying everything.

When I wrote back, "Four more years" he posed this question:

"I guess this is all Bush's fault? and that you advocate a socialist state and declining economic opportunities for your son in the future?"

To which I replied, G_, I value our friendship far too highly and value email far too little to believe we have a wisp of a prayer of successfully debating this here. But here are some views of mine:

1. I consider myself a centrist. Sometimes right of center, sometimes left of center, but a moderate centrist. I respect and listen to opposing views. I regularly find that I am wrong.

2. Obama inherited an economy in a death spiral. He has leveled off the plane and made it climb—with frustrating slowness—ever since. So yes, I still blame Bush for any statistics that show the economy or poverty is worse than when Obama took office. I consider this view to be factual.

3. Obama is competent.

4. He is tough on foreign policy and getting results.

5. His personal life and the way he conducts himself are impeccable.

6. I want low taxes but I think wealth disparity can be too great, especially if the rich are being taxed at historically low rates at the same time we are running huge deficits and live with decaying infrastructure. I don’t want to hear about cutting Social Security--which I may need, by the way--while Bank of America execs pay themselves 20 million dollars a year and pay on average 18% in income taxes after deductions. I don’t care if taxing the rich alone will not solve all of our problems: increasing their taxes is a step in the right direction.

7. I define rich as rich. It’s like porn: you know it when you see it.

8. I want an end to regulation and red tape, but at the same time I want industries that have shown a perfect willingness to blow up the entire economy in the pursuit of personal greed to be highly regulated.

9. I do not want the Healthcare Reform Bill or Dodd Frank repealed.

10. I don't worry much about Sharia law--not a big concern at this time.

11. I don't want abortion outlawed and I think a true Republican should not care about one's sexual orientation.

12. I am all for hard work and personal responsibility but I do not want to live in a Darwinian jungle. I think people are better than that.

13. This is about my son: the middle class has had no increase in wages for over ten years now. We have less upward mobility now than twenty years ago and less than many other countries. College costs are astronomical and growing. Putting some checks on the wealthy and investing more in infrastructure and education is exactly what my son needs.

So that’s where I’m at. Call me a raging liberal if you like; I think my views are healthy, centrist and grounded in fact. I am perfectly happy to vote for a Republican with better solutions to these problems but I don’t see one now. I am perfectly happy to call you my friend, listen to your arguments and adjust my opinions over time.

The Mission Trip to the Cheyenne River Lakota Indian Reservation

2011-09-28T21:19:00.000-07:00

By Quentin Smeltzer

My church takes mission trips. That is, a bunch of us who pay dues to the church (aka the members), pay some more money to go someplace rustic to help people and not proselytize to them; not even one itsy little bit. I guess the idea is that if we go there and we are helpful and pleasant enough, some of the people we help might be sufficiently confused to look us up on the internet some day to figure out what that was all about.

Which is the way I like it. As I’ve written before, our church is basically a collection of whomever shows up and we believe whatever it is that we happen to believe. We are Congregationalists, which as far as I can tell means we are earnest loiterers with mostly good intentions.

This year’s mission trip was to the Cheyenne River Sioux Indian reservation in La Plant, South Dakota. Actually, “Sioux” is a word the Indians don’t much care for. They are Lakota, which means the people who help each other. Sioux is a French word that means snake in the grass or something along those lines. It may be the least of the insults the Lakota endure.

History runs deep on the reservation. In the 1800’s white settlers and gold prospectors were advancing on Indian lands. The gold prospectors were mostly white too, but that's besides the point. The Indians resisted. Battles were fought. Treaties were formed and then broken. White settlement continued. The Lakota and other tribes would raid the settlements. The raids would generate counter-attacks by the US Army. Atrocities were committed on both sides.

After many battles, including the Battle of Little Bighorn, the US Army was strengthened to the tune of 2,500 men by an act of Congress. The Lakota, the Arapaho and the Cheyenne were finally defeated in 1877 and the Indians were confined by treaty to reservations. In the following years the Lakota were coerced into signing away more of their lands. Treaty promises to feed and clothe the Lakota were ignored. Low-level conflicts continued and in 1890, fearing rebellion, the Army rounded up and killed at least 150 mostly unarmed Lakota men, women and children with Hotchkiss machine guns in the Massacre at Wounded Knee.

Despite this history, despite being forced into a dysfunctional welfare state, despite being a culture of hunters and warriors stripped of the ability to live their own identity, the Lakota are warm and welcoming, with a wonderful sense of humor. Their spirituality revolves around their connection to the land, the sky and all of creation. They celebrate bravery and honor: the bravery of their men and their women. Even the bravery of their horses is honored in song and story and dance.

On my previous mission trip to Orland, Maine I mostly tooled around in a pickup truck with my buddy, Bruce, shopping for electrical parts which I helped him install in the homes of the poor. In the evenings we had showers and good meals. One day we went hiking in Acadia National Park and then we had lobster for dinner. Not a bad gig. The reservation, on the other hand, was different… very, very different.

First of all, there was no running water in the community center where we encamped. And we slept on the floor. There were no showers. There were no bathrooms, just outhouses, three of which blew over when a microburst of wind raged across the open prairie without warning.

The mosquitoes and other biting insects were voracious. Bug spray had no effect. And the ugliest dogs you’ve ever seen in your life milled about the camp more like matted homeless people than pets.

We worked seven days straight, which was not smart. Some people like to push themselves to extremes and then push themselves some more—you know, so it really hurts—and then there are the other six point seven billion of us who were not our leaders on this particular mission trip. So that was some bad luck right there. Especially for me, as I happen to be one of the six point seven billion who don’t consider heat exhaustion "fun."

In ninety degree heat under a relentless sun, we upgraded houses in the mornings. Then we ran a day camp for the local children in the afternoon when the real heat kicked in.

Before our first day-camp we were told that what the children need most is attention: a hug, a piggyback ride, a game of catch. Many of these kids live with grandparents; the parents are gone, taken by drugs, alcohol or poverty. So we gave hugs and piggyback rides and played catch. Some of the boys feigned initial toughness. But that quickly melted away once they realized we spoke to them with no agenda. Which was easy, because we don’t have one.

Other boys seemed starved for attention—they would cling to my back and legs, wrap their arms tightly around me and refuse to let me go. The girls were more likely to hang back, but they wanted piggyback rides too.

At one point I untangled myself from the boys long enough to give one of the girls a piggyback ride. She was maybe six or seven years old with beautiful, black hair and black eyes. She climbed aboard but she didn’t cling to me like some of the boys had. Instead, she told me to run. When I did, she stood on my hands, stiffened her body and threw her arms skyward. Then she did something that made the hair prickle up on the back of my neck: she let out a warrior’s cry: Wah hay! Wah hay!

Maybe it was the heat exhaustion, maybe I has hallucinating, but suddenly I was not some old guy giving a child a piggyback ride: suddenly I was her adrenaline-amped horse charging across the high plains, carrying my precious young warrior headlong into battle. It gave me chills. It made me want to keep running with her forever. It made me actually want to go into battle, which is worrying.

So what did we learn here? What did I learn? One: before you go on a mission trip, check the schedule and pencil in a day off when no one is looking. And two: don’t worry. Even if you are led by happy, committed masochists, experiences you could never have imagined might just make it all worthwhile.

The Worst Place in the World

2011-02-15T17:53:00.000-08:00

The Worst Place in the World

SmeltzerNation, 2/15/2011

First, I want to apologize for taking down yet another post. While it was all good-natured sport making fun of my English colleagues, it turns out that they have this thing in England called “the internet” which allows people there to read what I write as easily as people here in my own little corner of my own little town. Whoops!

But don’t worry; I’ll put that bit back into my next book. It will be safe there. Because absolutely no one reads my books.

Anyway, after making fun of the English I made a shocking and ironic discovery much closer to home. It turns out that I live in possibly the only state in the entire United States of America that does not allow the most fun thing to do in the entire world: quad bike riding. In fact—and here is the deep irony—I was in England of all places when I discovered that quadding is the most fun thing a married man my age is allowed to do in the entire world. Only to then come home and discover that this most fun and exciting of all things to do is not allowed in, yes... Connecticut.

Now, I want to make sure that you know what quad bikes are: they are those four-wheeled, outdoors, ride-in-the-mud thingies with big tires. They are different from off-road motorcycles in several significant ways. First, when you ride a dirt bike into a mud hole, the front tire stops and you are flung over the handlebars like a rag doll. The quad bike wallows through the mud and pulls you out the other side, producing an enormous grin on your face.

When you go into a corner in the woods on a dirt bike, and you hit a rock or a root, the front tire goes one way and you go the other, flung over the handlebars like a rag doll. When you go into a corner on a quad bike and you hit a rock or a root, the quad bike goes over the root or the rock and you keep going, producing an enormous grin on your face.

Since I have reached the age when I prefer grinning to being flung over the handlebars like a rag doll, I greatly prefer the quad bike. Only, they are not allowed. Not in Connecticut.

According to the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection:

“Effective January 1, 2006, except where specifically allowed, riding an ATV on state or municipal property may result in charges of criminal trespass. (Public Act 05-234)

At the current time, Connecticut does not have any public areas open to quads. Additionally, there are no State managed areas open to dirt bikes although the Army Corps of Engineers facility at Thomaston Dam is available for two wheeled trail bike riding.”

So, dirt bikes aren’t allowed at Thomaston but trail bikes are? Hmm… So what about quads? Are they allowed at Thomaston or not? According to the US Army Corp of Engineers:

Thomaston Dam has designated trails for two wheeled trailbikes, open May 1st through October 14th CONDITIONS PERMITTING. Three and four wheel vehicles are not permitted.

So they are not allowed in Connecticut, period, not even if CONDITIONS PERMIT. Which leads me to wonder, why would I, or anyone else for that matter, live in Connecticut? Our roads are jammed, our state is in debt, our taxes are rising and our schools are struggling. We pay the highest amount per gallon of gasoline in the entire country. And we aren't allowed to go quadding.

I have heard it said that Connecticut has the most highly educated populace of any state in the union but really, if we knew anything, we would know that quadding is fun. A lot of fun. More fun, say, than spending two and half hours driving the thirty miles from Stamford to Fairfield on Interstate 95. More fun than plugging our 3.7 billion dollar budget gap. More fun than driving our SUVs into gigantic potholes, which would be fun if we were driving, say, quads. And much more fun than being throw over the handlebars like a rag doll, which, however, is allowed at Thomaston Dam.

Thanks, Connecticut.

Retreating Thoughts

2011-01-11T11:08:00.000-08:00

Retreating Thoughts

By Quentin Smeltzer, www.SmeltzerNation.com, 1/8/11

Every year our church holds a men’s retreat where the men of the church don’t retreat so much as they venture forth to a simple lodge in the woods near a lake for two and a half days of camaraderie, prayer, discussion, a hike and an indoor golf tournament. The accommodations are rustic. The food is hearty but simple. The thoughts shared are sometimes profound, sometimes prosaic. I always laugh and I sometimes cry. Let me amend that: I always cry and usually at the oddest, most unexpected moments.

They say men cry more at movies then do women, and we cry more at movies if we see them on airplanes. I can also attest that we cry more in a cabin in the woods. The words that pop out of our mouths and into our heads in new places with new people are new and unexpected as well. Or maybe we’re just cry babies.

This year I found myself well up when we were discussing transitions and I realized, maybe for the first time in my fifty four years, that I may well lose my father to old age in the not too distant future. He is eighty one.

My dad and I have reconciled after some turbulent times. I love him and I know he loves me. But there are so many regrets, so many things said and unsaid, so many things done and undone.

Just ten years ago in my mid forties I believed I had no regrets and now my life is packed full of them. How did this happen?

I have made many changes in my life and most of them have been for the better. I gave up drugs and serious drink but somehow I recently decided to take up smoking. Let me amend that as well. If I said I took up smoking your children and mine might read that and start smoking. And I would not want that. If I said I took up smoking, my insurance company might raise my rates or deny my claim. It’s a funny world we live in. America may be the freest country in the world but we are far from free. I am not free to tell you I have taken up smoking even one cigarette a day.

Thinking about a passage we read from bible on this retreat I finally realized how to see God. God is us; people, and all creation. So I understand that part now. What I still don’t understand is why we live and die. “Why do we die?” I asked Nick, who works for Pitney Bowes.

“It’s all about the cycle of life,” he said. “It’s a transition.”

“Ah,” I said, but I still don’t get it.

If I did take up smoking it would not be because I want to die. I want to live forever and in fact, I hope to get younger with each passing day. Smoking may not improve my chances of attaining these two goals but, let’s face it: they are kind of a stretch anyway.

If I did recently take up smoking, say, just one cigarette a day, I might have smoked my one cigarette standing on the balcony outside my lodge room just now, listening to the snow melt from the trees in the dark of night. I might have had this thought, that if I wasn't smoking I would just be standing there. But because I was smoking—if I was smoking—I was doing something. Something half stupid. Something half mystical. Something that isn't allowed at this lodge or almost anywhere in the world anymore, but something nevertheless.

The Country that Stole Christmas

2010-12-22T07:47:00.000-08:00

The Country that Stole Christmas

By Quentin Smeltzer

First I want to apologize for my previous post which appeared and then mysteriously disappeared in the blink of an eye. It appeared because I wanted to share some of my more controversial thoughts on the battle of the sexes in marriage. It disappeared because my wife told me to take it down. So it was a pretty short war as it turned out.

Today I write from England where I’ve been on a business trip since December 6. Actually my business trip ended last Saturday the 18th. Today is Wed the 22^nd. For the past four days I’ve been trying to get home.

You may have heard about the terrible snow storm that blanketed England last weekend. What you may not realize is that we received only about four inches of snow and the snow stopped mid-Saturday. That didn't prevent Heathrow airport from cancelling my 5 PM flight home, which showed, by the way, that it was ON TIME until thirty minutes before boarding, when it changed to CANCELLED.

The minute my flight was cancelled, Delta Airlines sprang into action. First, they provided no information whatsoever. Second, I saw a bunch of passengers heading down a corridor so I followed them. I waited in a very long line until I finally reached a Delta representative who handed me a copied "letter of apology" and then shooed me out of the terminal into the night.

But Delta didn't stop there. The airline raced to rebook me on an Air France flight to Paris scheduled to leave just four days later, today. From Paris I would fly to JFK. At this moment, if you look on Delta’s website, they still show my flight to Paris as ON TIME. However, if you look on the Air France site you will see that my flight to Paris is CANCELLED.

When I called Delta to point this out, I waited on hold for ten minutes at about $5 per minute before I was rebooked on an American Airlines flight for tomorrow, Thursday the 23^rd. Only, just now, my travel agent double checked and says I am not booked on the AA flight at all. Nice work Delta!

Delta is clearer when it comes to compensating me for my trouble. They say they have no interest in paying my $150 per night in hotel, plus meals, taxis, etc., because they cancelled my flight due to “weather.” The fact there hasn’t been any “weather” here since last Saturday morning doesn’t seem to register.

It is very hard to understand why Heathrow still hasn’t cleared the snow. Evidently, they use a highly specialized technique for snow removal here which they refer to as “melting.” Unfortunately, it turns out that “melting” doesn’t work if the temperature doesn’t rise above freezing—who knew? And who might expect cold temperatures in December? So they’ve switched to a new technique of snow removal they have very high hopes for. In fact, they call this new approach “staring and hoping.”

The delays here at Heathrow have caused similar delays and massive crowds in airport terminals throughout Europe. In Germany at one airport they’ve hired clowns to entertain stranded passengers. If I see a clown when I return to Heathrow tomorrow I will kill him.

I don’t know if I’ll get home tomorrow or not. I may not get home until the Spring thaw. All I can say is that it was easier to fly to Colombia than it has been to fly to England. In fact, I’m pretty sure that they’d do a better job of clearing the runways if it did snow in Colombia. A band of Arhuacos waving coca leaves could not possibly do worse.

Roommates

2010-11-29T06:21:00.000-08:00

Roommates

By Quentin Smeltzer, www.SmeltzerNation.com 11/29/2010

Now that I am a famous author, known at least to half a dozen fans, I have to be very careful about what I say and do.

For example, when my twelve year old son asked if he could sell my book, (you know the one, Self Help, Your Complete Book of Bad Advice for Every Situation in Life), at school to his friends, well, I could either have said, “Of course not, that would be completely inappropriate,” or I could have said, “I’ll give you fifty percent commission.”

It turns out I may have chosen poorly. Certainly, my wife was not happy to get a phone call from the vice principal informing her that selling his father’s book in school is completely inappropriate behavior and the book has been confiscated. My son is not allowed to have it and I have to go to school to pick it up. I only hope they didn’t throw away the order sheet he started to compile…

I guess I’m not surprised—the world seldom keeps up with genius. Soon, I imagine, all children will take their parents’ wares to school and hawk them from cardboard stands at recess, but for now, I guess my son and I are busted. He was deeply disappointed, having already decided how he would spend his commission.

In my defense, it’s not like I sent him to school to sell drugs. He was selling a book for gosh sakes! And a very funny one, at that. True, the book contains adult language and themes and he was selling it to eight year olds, but they’re going to find out about sex and drugs and how to screw up their lives soon enough. They might as well hear it from me.

“You’re going to go to his school,” said my wife, “and apologize and tell them this was all your fault!”

“Well, in fairness,” I said, “the original idea was his…”

“Which you encouraged!”

“True, but only to teach important values like entrepreneurship.”

“Why do I have to keep getting these calls?” she screamed at me.

I shrugged. “You can give them my number,” I offered.

“Why is there so much drama?” she wailed, running out of the house and slamming the door.

I watched the door and counted backwards from ten. At “two” the door flung open again. That’s when she dropped the bombshell on me: “I will live in this house,” she vowed, shaking her finger in rage, “I will help you raise our child, but that’s it! We are no longer man and wife!”

Then she disappeared once more. The door slammed and I heard the poor, little, four-cylinder engine in our SUV howl in protest as she floored it out of the driveway and roared off down our wooded lane. This is my wife’s reaction to most of the problems we confront: flee. Run away. I believe it is no accident that when it came time to buy a new vehicle she chose a Ford Escape.

Later, when next I saw her, I said, “Hey Roomie, how’s it going? We’re roommates now, right?”

“That’s right,” she said. “Roommates. Nothing more.”

“This is fantastic!” I said. “This means I no longer have to listen to you talk about how much you disapprove of me and every, single, inappropriate thing I do! This means you have half of the responsibility for keeping the place clean and paying the bills! And when you start talking to me when I’m watching a television show, now I can ask you to be quiet! This is incredible, fantastic! Hey, if I get you drunk, I still might get lucky with you! Why didn’t we do this years ago?”

It’s been several days now since our new relationship began and things could not be better. When she starts to list my faults I cut her off; “Not your place, roommie,” I remind her. When she leaves something out now I say, “Uh, roommie, you want to pick that up?” And when I’m watching television and she starts singing show tunes in the kitchen adjoining I call out, “Hey, roommie, you wanna hold it down? I’m a watching a show here.”

As for getting lucky, well, a gentleman never tells. Let’s just say this new roommate arrangement is fantastic!

Like all good things this new development will soon end and we will go back to being "man" and wife. Unless of course we can create a new institution to make this permanent:

“Do you take this woman to be your roommate, to share all work and responsibilities evenly, to raise kids and have sex with on occasion if you’re both in the mood, but really not to listen to her assessment of your character flaws and weaknesses because as your roommate that’s really not cool?”

“Oh boy, do I! I do indeed!”

Self Help for Women

2010-11-06T17:33:00.001-07:00

Self Help for Women
By Quentin Smeltzer, www.SmeltzerNation.com, 11/6/2010

A friend of mine recently wrote to suggest that I write the female version of Self Help, or “Self Help for Women.” She wrote something about men being emotionless creatures incapable of listening. Something like that... I wasn’t really paying attention.

Clearly, men and women want different things. Let’s cut to the chase, shall we? Women want everything in the world. Men want women, at least temporarily.

On that last point, it is strange to see how many men who have a woman want some other woman, or more women, or women who will act like they imagined women might act when these men were fourteen and dreamt of having women.

That the actual woman they might grow up to marry and have children with might behave remarkably like their own mother did is a thought that never crosses the fourteen-year-old, male mind. If it did, all human procreation would immediately cease.

I think most women, on the other hand, would appreciate husbands who act more like they remember their fathers acting: silent, inert except to fix something, and always with money for the movies. Instead, many women grow up appalled to find they’ve married a man who behaves like he's fourteen.

My new friend noted that men are pack animals who must learn to suppress their emotions in order to hunt without hesitation. She added, “Any male who cannot suppress his emotions after adolescence usually finds himself becoming a computer analyst or oil rig worker [so] his life will require no human contact at all.” She forgot to mention writer. This also explains why I entered the computer field.

My friend notes that women value social connections, men value instant gratification, i.e., sex. But really, what’s the difference? First, I believe that if I have sex with you, I have made a social connection. And if I can’t have sex with you, then really, what’s the point? But, I kid. I value social connections. Without them how would I make any money, and without money, how would I ever get laid? You see how it all comes together.

Another great point she makes is that a woman makes “connections over the course of her lifetime between emotions and various concrete objects. For example, flowers! This is a very simple way for the male to still show her that he has feelings for her, whether this is true or not. Whether the male is capable of recognizing his feelings and being romantic really doesn’t matter so long as he understands that she has made this connection.”

Which is fascinating! It also explains why my wife constantly wants me to buy her useless crap. And really, I would, except, why would I do that again?

One thing I am reasonable sure of is that women don’t need a “Self Help for Women.” Women have the upper hand already. Let’s face it, bitching, crying and withholding sex will always trump silence and breaking things. We men just don’t stand a chance.

In fact I believe there is nothing a woman can’t get through a careful application of the three magic levers: complaint, emotional outburst and physical affection. What do men have? Cold logic and the aforementioned ability to punch a hole through a wall. We used to have money but they don’t hire men in this country any more. Evidently the drywall repair costs were too high.

The Names of God

2010-10-21T06:05:00.000-07:00

The Names of God

By Quentin Smeltzer, www.SmeltzerNation.com, Oct-21-2010

Somehow of late, I find myself attending an adult confirmation class at my church. You might think the reasons for signing up for a class that will examine God, religion and our place in the world might come from some deep philosophical bent or some mystical nexus of serendipity and fate, but actually it’s much simpler than that: my wife told me I had to.

I don’t even think she needs me to become more religious, per se. I think she just wants me out of the house. Any excuse will do.

My church is the Congregational Church, which, as far as I can tell, is a collection of pretty much anyone who wants to show up on Sunday morning for an hour of music and talk and then drink coffee and loiter about for twenty minutes or so afterwards. Our group is made of Catholics, Jews and Protestants, as well as a healthy contingent of agnostics. There are absolutely no standards to join our church which, of course, makes it the perfect church for me.

Personally I am leaning towards the Bill Maher variety of atheism, except atheists, so far as I can tell, seldom get together for free coffee and cake. The other reason I don’t go whole hog into the atheism camp is that every time I seriously screw up in life I find myself praying to God to get me out of it. I rarely catch myself praying to Bill Maher.

As I write in my book (shameless plug alert!) Self Help, Your Complete Book of Bad Advice for Situation in Life, there is a big difference between God and Religion. If you read any of the holy books—the Bible, the Koran, the Bhagavad Gita, Battlefield Earth—you will soon notice that religions try to control you; God doesn’t care what you do. You can rape, murder, pillage, enslave; God is perfectly okay with all of it! Religions, on the other hand, want to tell you when, where and how you can pray, eat, dress, sit, stand, kneel and make babies. Other than that, they’re cool.

In a recent Adult Confirmation class we were handed a sheet to discuss which contained maybe seventy or eighty different names for God. Apparently, this was the abridged version.

One of the names that spoke to me was “LORD of Armies.” I can’t imagine anything would make me religious faster than marching into battle. I played paintball at a birthday party a few months ago and I couldn't keep a bunch of ten year olds from shooting my ass up, so I can’t imagine facing the real thing.

Another name was “LORD our Banner” which made me think of God as a local supermarket chain. “Hiding Place” was an interesting name for God. If Hiding Place appeals to you, you may just have some parental issues worth discussing with a professional.

Other words for God included “Daddy,” “Father,” “Mother,” and “Husband,” which made me wonder why “Skip,” “Buddy” and “Chipper” weren’t in there.

“I AM” was a popular name with the class as was the more loquacious, “I AM WHAT I AM.” I looked on the sheet but could not find “I AM WHAT I AM AND THAT’S ALL THAT I AM, I’M POPEYE THE SAILOR MAN”, but it may have been there somewhere.

One that bothered me was the must-not-even-be-spelled-out version: “G_d.” I understand that not saying the name of God out loud comes from understanding that God is too vast a concept to be named, but if we can’t say the name and we can’t spell it, well c’mon; this is just too damn difficult! It’s like trying to write about the artist formerly known as Prince.

In the end, I suppose it doesn’t matter what you call god or how you think of he, she or it. And if the entire subject has left you completely confused I have suggestion for you: join the Congregationalists. We don’t have clue either.

Week in Review

2010-09-27T19:59:00.000-07:00

The Week in Review

By Quentin Smeltzer, 9/27/2010

I’ve been travelling lately so it has been a little difficult to keep track of current events. But let’s see, Christine O’Donnell won the Republican primary for the Senate race for Delaware and Bill Maher outed her as a witch. Evidently the time is right for a candidate who has firsthand knowledge of satanic mass, believes that stem cell research is bad because scientists have already inserted human brains into mice and is sure there is no such thing as evolution because she has yet to observe any changes in the monkeys at her local zoo. And who could argue?

On the other hand, her anti-masturbation stance may prove more problematic. I mean, let’s face it, sex with ourselves is pretty much the only sex some us ever see. Especially those of us who are married. And it is not just the anti-masturbation position. It is the way she argued against it. Said Christine: “I mean, if you’re going to masturbate, what am I here for?” What indeed, Christine, what indeed?

Then there was Steven Colbert, who testified Friday before congress in character as a right wing, bloviating fool. Evidently it didn’t go well. People called it embarrassing, inappropriate, out of place and disrespectful. But let’s take a step back, shall we? First of all, this is congress we’re talking about. If bloviating fools aren’t allowed to testify there are going to be some pretty lonely congress-people up there. Second, Colbert warned them he was going to appear “in character.” Did they think he meant he was going to wear a bear costume? And third, he submitted his serious testimony in writing beforehand. I have no idea what he said in his written testimony and neither do you, which should tell you everything you need to know about the effectiveness of serious testimony.

But I will tell you why the Colbert thing backfired. Because nobody laughed, that’s why. Had he started with serious testimony and then announced he was going into character, and then come up with a funny line or two, all would have been well. But to press ahead with his act to stone-faced silence was just painful to watch.

Doing your act in front of stone-faced silence is something I know a thing or two about. Having had a few successful comedy performances and a few less successful comedy performances I can tell you there is a very simple distinction between what is funny and what is not: if they laugh it’s funny. That’s pretty much how it works.

Some other stuff happened recently, like congress voted down repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. I’ve never really understood how that is supposed to work, by the way. I mean, the recruits go off on weekend leave and they come back and they’re sitting around and Bill says, man, we hooked up with these smokin’ babes at a bar. And Steve says, my girlfriend and I went out to the lake. Then they turn to Bruce and ask, what did you do this weekend, and Bruce says, Oh, nuthin'.

I guess the final bit of news was the Republicans released their Pledge to Do to America What They Did the Last Time They Were Allowed to Do Things to America. But this time things will be different. The Republicans realize they made mistakes the last time they were in charge. That’s why this time they are pledging to cut taxes for the super-rich, return us to the healthcare system which was serving us so well, remove pesky regulation from Wall Street and oil companies, and go to war with Iran at the earliest imaginary opportunity. Frankly, it would be less scary if they were pro-witchcraft.

Tea Time?

2010-09-16T07:05:00.000-07:00

Tea Time?

By Quentin Smeltzer, 9/16/2010

Democrats are rubbing their hands in glee now that eight Tea Party candidates have beaten more moderate Republicans in Republican primaries. But why?

Democrats say people like Sharon Angle, Rand Paul and Christine O’Donnell can’t win general elections. Heck, even Karl Rove says O’Donnell can’t win! Well, maybe not in Cuba, turd blossom, but I think she’ll do just fine right here in the good ol’ US of A. In fact, she might do alright in Cuba now that Fidel has admitted that a true welfare state, without a cold war superpower pumping cash into it, really can’t make it on its own. Tea Party activism should be popping up in Havana any day now…

Republican hypocrisy is surely the eighth wonder of the world, not that anyone can name the original seven without turning to Wikipedia. By the way, six of the seven wonders have disappeared along with all Republican credibility.

A few months ago Republicans were wailing about deficits. In fact, that’s what got the tea baggers out of their trailer homes and into the streets. That and the fact there’s a Kenyan Islam-o-terrorist in the White House! How did that happen? But now Republicans insist that hundred thousand dollar tax cuts be extended to millionaires at a cost of billions of dollars of borrowed money per year, extracted from the futures of the rest of us. Sounds like a plan!

Of course, these are the same Republicans who won in 2000 with a pledge to restore fiscal discipline. Then they ran up the largest spending binge seen on this planet since the Hanging Gardens of Babylon (second wonder of the world) or the last time Donald Trump decorated a vacation home (wonder why). To say Republican necks must be suffering the effects of whiplash doesn’t do it justice. My belief is their heads actually spin like Linda Blair’s in the Exorcist.

When predicting whether tea baggers can be elected, you have to remember that this is the country that elected George Bush—twice! And the second time he got the most votes! Powerful forces are in play. Cutting taxes is a drug. It is more powerful than roads, bridges, health care and foreign wars. It is a drug the way welfare was a drug. It is an obsessive compulsion that leads to debilitating results.

Will a society endure that is based on the socialist principle that you give to all according to their need? No it will not. Few will work if it not working pays. We figured that out a few decades ago.

But will a society endure that is based on a Darwinian meritocracy, where it is every man for himself according to his ability and his effort? No it will not. The talented few will end up with all the marbles and the middle will suffer. Without a strong middle class to buy stuff, the economy will collapse. This isn’t theory. This is the end of eight years of Bush. This is what is known as 2008.

We’ve seen both of these movies, so why worry? Because Americans love a remake, that’s why! Somehow we forget that Rocky will win and John Connor will survive. Somehow we’re surprised when the head of the little girl possessed by demons turns completely around on its axis. Just like Republican “principles.”

Cue the voice over: In a world where no one pays taxes and you can pay for your cardiogram with a chicken, if you have a chicken… Don’t miss, Robber Barons II, Mansions and Misery! Coming this November to a congress near you!

Just a Hunk, a Hunk of Burning Hate

2010-09-08T19:41:00.001-07:00

Just a Hunk, a Hunk of Burning Hate

Quentin Smeltzer, www.SmeltzerNation.com, 9/8/2010

As you are likely aware, three days from now some nutjob pastor in Florida is going to burn copies of the Islamic holy book, the Quran. I say nutjob in only the most positive way. This is the kind of thing that could only happen in Florida. Or Texas. Or Arizona… heck I guess it could happen anywhere in this country, although it is difficult to imagine it taking place in my polite state of Connecticut. Then again, we may elect the former head of the World Wrestling Federation as our new junior Senator, so let’s stick with it could happen anywhere.

One thing I remember from my youth is conservatives love to burn stuff. McCarthy incited the burning of pro-communist books. The Catcher in the Rye was burned. Beatles records were burned. Before my time, a few Negro slaves were tossed into the flames. One thing Americans know is that if you don’t like something, blow it up, and if you can’t blow it up, at least set it on fire!

To be fair, this urge to burn stuff is not confined to the right. I don’t recall any conservatives burning the American flag. I remember quite a few of them jumping to the conclusion that we must have yet another change to the Constitution (which they so dearly love just the way it is) to protect the flag. But they weren’t burning it. They didn’t burn their draft cards. And was it conservatives out there burning their bras? No, of course not. Republican girls need the support.

Nor is this urge to burn confined to America. The Nazis famously burned books with which they disagreed. The Chinese burned books (and buried the scholars who wrote them)! The Quran has been burned before, during the Spanish Inquisition. There was the destruction of the library at Alexandria and the burning of the Mayan codices in 1562… Good times, good times…

So let’s face it, we all of us, left and right, near and far, we all love to burn stuff! In fact, burning stuff may be the world’s favorite way to say, I disagree with you. But why is this? How to explain it? Well, can you say “Weenie roast?” And here’s a question for you: what’s more cheery and heart-warming than a fire? Answer: a fire that devours thoughts and ideas you don’t have the intellectual firepower to refute, that’s what!

So let’s not get too down on our little pastor from Florida. He’s not original, he’s nothing new. He’s just doing what tyrants, despots and the intellectually feeble have done for centuries: casting big scary shadows from teeny, weenie people with just a little help from a glowing pile of ignorance and hate.

Mad Men

2010-09-01T10:51:00.000-07:00

Mad Men

Quentin Smeltzer, www.SmeltzerNation.com, 9/1/2010

Why is everyone so mad at the Obama administration? The George W. Bush administration was all marketing. The Obama administration has no marketing. I think this is the problem.

In the Bush years we heard about the “Clear Skies Initiative” which gave companies free reign to pollute. We heard about “tax cuts for everyone” which let the rich steal the middle class’ future. We heard about “mushroom clouds” from Iraq, which let us start an unpaid for, trillion-dollar war in search of weapons of mass destruction. Still haven’t found them.

The Republicans told us about “fiscal responsibility” and “deregulating business.” We got crazy spending, a financial meltdown and a contaminated gulf. We heard about “small government” and watched New Orleans drown. We heard about “a culture of life” and lost cures that could have helped millions—my twelve-year-old son, for one.

To call it all bullshit might be on target. But I prefer to call it marketing.

If you say anything negative about the vast mass of people that inhabits the space between New York and Los Angeles you will quickly be labeled an elitist. Sarah Palin routinely warns the country not to discount the intelligence of her followers, apparently well aware that there's an issue here.

Many pundits and pols will say “the American people are not stupid,” but really, sadly, they are. Think back to the months leading up to the invasion of Iraq. The minute I heard on the radio the return of the Hank Williams Jr. song, “Don’t Give Us a Reason,” I knew we were going back in. You knew it, too. So don’t look down on bumper sticker politics. This is exactly the kind of politics Obama needs.

Let’s take healthcare reform, which is still, somehow, unpopular. Let’s give regular, medical care to people who haven’t had the good fortune to make a lot of money so they can get off the couch and go back to work. How is this not popular? No marketing, that’s how.

Imagine if we could get ol’ Hank Jr. to sing a new song entitled “We Take Care of Our Own,” warning greedy insurance companies not to mess with the good ol’ US of A and not to deny poor widows and hard workin’ farmers access to that country doctor. You know what would happen? The same morons now demanding repeal of health care reform would demand more health care reform. This isn’t rocket science. It’s marketing.

How about bumper stickers and a song called “Pay Your Share,” where ol’ Hank warns all them evil bankers to stop siphoning away the money that grandma and orphans depend on? Can you say repeal the Bush tax cuts for the rich? I bet you could after you heard that song.

Could we get Obama to visit a ranch and clear some brush? How about a cowboy hat? EVERYONE looks better in a cowboy hat. And anything would be better than pictures of his skinny legs in those shorts he insists on wearing when he plays golf. They don’t wear shorts on the PGA Tour for a reason. It isn’t comfort; it’s called marketing.

On the television show “Mad Men” it is clear that the main character, Don Draper, is a man who can see what everyone wants and he uses that knowledge to sell whatever he has. The tension comes from the fact that Don doesn’t know what he himself wants. Obama knows what he has to sell and he knows that most of us want it. What Obama lacks is the most basic understanding of how to sell it.

Bumper stickers and country songs, Barry. And pick up a hat while you’re at it.

Mosque We?

2010-08-23T06:36:00.001-07:00

Mosque We?

Quentin Smeltzer, SmeltzerNation, 8/22/2010

No one is more disturbed than I that on every issue that comes up, I seem to side with my liberal rather than my conservative friends. However, as I’ve recently written, until you righties actually get something right, that’s just the way it’s going to have to be…

The latest example is what is known as the “Mosque Controversy.” Should an Imam be allowed to build a mosque at Ground Zero? First of all, only Imam’s build mosques, as far as I know, so the fact that the construction is being put forth by an Islamic, religious leader really can’t be helped.

Stupid attempts at humor aside, I understand it is a cultural center, not a mosque, and it is not to be built at “Ground Zero” but two blocks away. I don’t know if you’ve ever been to Manhattan (I lived there for ten years) but two blocks away in Manhattan is like the next town over for the rest of the country. A lot goes on in two blocks of Manhattan. Neighborhoods can begin and end, social-economic conditions flip, the architecture changes, different languages are spoken; everything can change in the space of two blocks in Manhattan!

But let’s try to be reasonable here. Those of you who oppose this new mosque, how many blocks would you like? Would three blocks be better? Four? How about four blocks and a side street? How about just past the topless bar, and across from the pizza joint, near the church that was converted into a nightclub?

I am also troubled by the term Ground Zero. Shouldn’t we call it Ground Less Than Zero, since it’s been almost ten years now and there is nothing there but a giant hole in the ground? And doesn’t the fact that this particular religious leader is one Imam who has worked diligently to promote peaceful dialog and understanding between Muslims, Jews and Christians count for something?

Not to the Fox and Rush crowd. They see a wedge issue. They see another opportunity to rile up the yahoos and get them out there in the streets with their Obama-as-witch-doctor signs on the evening news. They see a way to stir anger against the Democrats, which is the only way they’re ever going to win another election: because they haven’t got a single idea that works between them.

Oh wait, I forget, they have ideas: when Reagan cut taxes, the economy improved and revenues went up. Gee, that must mean that if we keep cutting taxes, revenue will go even higher! In fact, if you really care about the budget deficit, cut taxes to zero! Revenues will explode! That assumes, of course, that you can explode to zero. Which, sadly, brings us back to our topic.

Some say the cultural center-cum-mosque will be a thumb in the eye of the 9/11 victim families. Others say it will show the world that we really mean it when we say this country protects and defends religious freedom, whether it’s popular or not—especially when it’s not.

The correct answer is door number two. Sorry Conservatives. I really do hope to side again with you soon. However, I’m afraid that, once again, you’ve chosen incorrectly.

Vacation Fun!

2010-08-21T10:56:00.000-07:00

Vacation Fun!

Quentin Smeltzer, SmeltzerNation, 8/21/2010

It’s been a while since my last post because we’ve been on vacation. You know what a vacation is: that’s when you go someplace you chose not to live, to get by without the creature comforts you most enjoy, to eat food you wouldn’t normally eat, and to pay boatloads of money for the privilege.

A recent New York Times article says buying “things” doesn’t make us happy. This is particularly good news for those of us with no discernible source of income. Unfortunately, the article goes on to say that paying for experiences like sushi rolling lessons or vacations does make us happy. So my wife decided we should take the money I'd been saving for a new motorcycle and spend it on a vacation.

And it is true that vacations always make me happy… when they end. Nothing brightens my day like the news that I can stop paying hundreds of dollars a day to use stuff I can use at home for free.

But is it all about money? If you looked at my bank balance you might conclude that it is. But what about family bonding time, adventure and new experiences? And it was a new experience to be yelled at by the attendant for daring to bring a small cooler poolside. It was fun finding no parking place in the motel lot at night. It was a delight to watch my wife and son shop for useless crap in the interminable string of gift and novelty stores that lined the main drag of our vacation village.

And then there was the day we spent at the Six Flags Great Adventure amusement and water park. My wife bought our “all-inclusive” tickets online, so we only paid about $120 to enter! Our fun-filled day started with a mile-long walk from where we were allowed to park, for only an additional $10. Then we got to stand in a swelling, impatient crowd waiting for the park to open.

When it did, we raced for the gondola ride, which I thought might give us a good overview of the park. It turns out the gondola ride moves at roughly the same speed as the old woman in the commercial who has fallen and can’t get up. This made for one LONG ride, inching along with our feet dangling thirty feet above the hot pavement. Instead of traversing the park, giving us the reconnaissance I had hoped for, it made a small loop in the one corner of the park we had already seen. Scratch off the first 45 minutes of our thrilling day!

Next, we got on one of those spinning, swing rides; the kind you can catch at the local fair that sets up in a field in your town every summer. Hardly amusement park quality, but still enough to induce a mild case of vertigo coupled with nausea. My son wasn't interested in the big roller coasters after that, so instead we decided to head into the water park to enjoy some splash-tastic fun!

Speaking of fun, the first choice we faced in the water park was how much we wanted to pay for a locker for our street clothes! I think we opted for the $17 “medium.” Standing in front of a wall of lockers my wife swiped her receipt in front of an electronic reader, and--voila!--a floor-level door popped open. After changing into our bathing suits and jamming our street clothes into this rat hole we were ready to get wet 'n wild!

To get our wacky, watery adventure started, we stood in a line with inner tubes and climbed a four-story tower to go down a water slide. The ride lasted twenty seconds. The line lasted twenty minutes.

Quickly tiring of that, I spotted the line for the Black Cobra water tube ride. This queue appeared to be short so I corralled my family in. After we were in this line for twenty minutes we made a turn around a bend and saw there was a hidden part of the line, meaning it was three times longer than it first appeared. After an hour in the broiling sun we got to the top to see a single attendant operating only one of the two Cobra tubes available. I thought about asking this high school student making minimum wage why the other tube wasn't being used while people suffered sunstroke in the brutal heat, but really, I was just so happy to get the hell out of there I jumped in the raft with my son and we pushed off. The sweltering, claustrophobic, neck-snapping ride lasted all of thirteen seconds.

It was already lunch time and I was eager to see what delights might be available. The answer was a marvel I had never seen before and frankly never hoped to see in my lifetime: the $10 slice of cheese pizza!

After this yummy lunch of white dough, tomato sauce and "real" cheese came the interesting challenge of finding a place to sit by the giant wave pool. With arms loaded with bag and towels I walked past maybe 500 chaise lounges, each with a towel or a pair of sunglasses on it to “hold” it. Finally, incredibly, I found the one open lounge in the entire park! I put our stuff there, rechecked to make sure I still had my sunglasses, and started off to find wife and child.

Just steps away I was accosted by an angry New Yorker who accused me of stealing his chair and rifling through his property. “The chair was empty,” I assured him. “No it wasn't,” he said. I used to argue with this kind of goon, sometimes receiving a fat lip for my trouble, always receiving a dose of adrenaline sufficient to make my eyeballs vibrate out of my head. Now I take a cue from the pastor of my church: I make my voice very small and say: "Okay."

This doesn't do much for my action hero self image but it does help ensure that my feet reach the ground the rest of the day. It also scores points with the wife who really doesn't need me to provide drama.

I gathered our things and we sat on our towels on the concrete. At least the giant, wave pool will be fun, I thought. But just as we got in they ordered the hundreds of people in it to get out. There was no explanation. Half an hour later when we were allowed back in there were no waves. It was just a vast, crowded swimming pool, only deep enough to cover the tops of our knees. We left the pool and returned to our pile of towels on the ground.

It was around this time that my son, wife and I all noticed that our bare feet were beginning to blister from hours of standing and walking on hot concrete with no place to sit. I cautiously asked if anyone was ready to go and tried to conceal my joy when it was unanimous: oh yes.

Understandably exhausted from the three or four rides we had managed to cram into the course of our fun-filled, sun-baked, over-priced, five hours in the park, we made the long, painful hike back to our Lilliputian locker. I crouched on the floor like a homeless person foraging a tipped over garbage can and clawed our belongings out. We changed into street clothes and began the long death march back to our car.

What a day! Like the vacation itself, our Six Flags experience had indeed made me happy. To leave. As they say in their television commercials: More flags, more fun! I'm thinking they're still a couple of flags short...

Motorcycle Lust

2010-08-10T18:47:00.001-07:00

Motorcycle Lust

Quentin Smeltzer, SmeltzerNation, 8/10/2010

As I wrote in “Self Help, Your Complete Book of Bad Advice for Every Situation in Life,” Europe still generally accepts the concept of the mistress. I know this largely from watching movies.

The mistress is the twenty-to-thirty-something-year-old girl who sleeps with the married, forty-to-sixty-year-old man. This keeps the man happy—I’m just guessing here—and it frees the married woman from the expectation that, at least once or twice a year, she pretend to enjoy sex. The older man is gratified, the younger woman gains valuable experience, and the wife gets to spend her time on the important things in life: cooking and chatting with friends. The marriage thrives and everyone is happy. In Europe.

Here in the U.S. we don’t have the “mistress.” We have “adultery.” We have “grounds for divorce.” If sex is the reason man invented alcohol, then likewise, I believe married sex is the reason man invented the motorcycle. The motorcycle is the closest thing to the girlfriend that the married, American man will get.

The parallels are many: The motorcycle is hot. The motorcycle is sexy. You get on top of the motorcycle and ride it. You may feel inspired to wear leather. In any case, you know you should wear protection. The motorcycle encourages you to go faster and harder. If not treated with proper respect, the motorcycle may injure or kill you. One can give you road rash, the other can result in rug burn. When the motorcycle gets a few miles on it, it is expected that you will trade it in for a sexy, new model. The motorcycle can be expensive, but nothing, a wise acquaintance of mine once said, is more expensive than the girlfriend.

I was flipping through the channels the other night and stopped on Headline News or one of those channels where they spend most of their time yammering about the latest, sensational rapist, pedophile, wife killer or the like. News flash: they are pretty uniformly “opposed.” Anyway, I caught a few seconds of a discussion about a new, feminist movement. These new feminists, apparently, believe in letting their married men have the girlfriend. By understanding that the man’s sex drive far outweighs their own, and by consenting to that reality, these women feel empowered, not victimized.

I didn’t get to hear as much of the discussion as I would have liked. Before I could even think about inviting my wife into the den to watch the show with me, the woman espousing the new view was shouted down by a trio of enraged harpies. Diving for the remote, I quickly changed the channel to Sports Center and reviewed scores and highlights until the shuddering subsided.

This experience and others lead me to believe that it is highly unlikely that the Continental view of the mistress will prevail here any time soon. While this may be a bad thing for married people, it is decidedly good news for your local, motorcycle dealership.

Finally, let me say to my own wife, if she’s reading this—and, believe me, she scrutinizes every word—that the above comments should in no way, shape or form be construed as meaning that I myself would like a girlfriend. Be advised, however, that I may soon be asking for permission to buy yet another sexy new bike.

Republican Recap

2010-08-03T08:54:00.000-07:00

Republican Recap

Quentin Smeltzer, SmeltzerNation 8/3/10

Well, Lindsey is out of jail and into rehab but nothing much has changed for the Republicans. They still say jobs are the number one priority, but they block the passage of any bill that will help create jobs.

They still say the biggest financial threat we face is the deficit, but they are opposed to raising taxes on the top two percent richest Americans to levels that produced a budget surplus in the Clinton years.

Sharon Angle continues to refuse to answer questions from the press (no, Fox News doesn’t count), and the Republicans refuse to consider comprehensive immigration reform while plotting to change the Constitution to strip American citizenship from a sizeable percentage of the brown babies born in this country. I don’t think that’s much of an overstatement, do you?

This would all be laughable, particularly the part about refusing to raise taxes on the rich to historically normal levels, except many of the poorest and presumably dumbest amongst us support these lunatic positions with a fervor edging ever closer to violence. All of this leads many news organizations to predict big gains for Republicans in the coming November elections.

So, let’s get this straight: Republicans presided over entangling us in the two longest and mostly costly wars in our nation's history while simultaneously running our economy off a cliff. The first war was understandable, except for the fact that it’s gone on for nine years. The second war was a crusade, pure and simple.

At the same time, Republicans drove the economy into the biggest contraction since the Great Depression by cutting taxes, eliminating business regulations and spending as if a sizeable percentage of the money was siphoning directly into their pockets—which it was.

Since 2008, Democrats have been making progress undoing all of these disasters, but not quickly enough for most of us—almost entirely due to Republican obstruction, by the way. And all of this adds up to… vote for Republicans???

Okay then…

In the past I have heard some snarky Republicans call for a literacy test in order to qualify to vote. Be careful what you ask for. These days anyone capable of adding two plus two and getting four is unlikely to vote Republican. Unfortunately, apparently, judging by the poles, that doesn’t include much of the public.

I voted for Reagan, the second time, and I will vote Republican again the day the Democrats create greater incentives to not work than work, impose so much regulation they strangle business, and tax to the point where they drain the economy of its lifeblood.

We're not there yet, folks. Not even close.

Hot Topics

2010-07-27T08:43:00.001-07:00

Hot Topics

Quentin Smeltzer, SmeltzerNation 7/27/2010

A political cauldron of hot-button issues is brewing this summer: ending tax cuts for the rich, extending unemployment benefits for the jobless, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Tea Party, immigration, race relations and Lindsey Lohan. Okay, Lindsey is clearly where she needs to be, but the rest of these issues need sorting out.

Let’s start at the top: should we extend unemployment insurance and should we let the Bush tax cuts expire?

Conservatives have been arguing that giving away money only disinclines people to find and perform meaningful work, and I could not agree more… for the rich. If you’re fat and happy are you going to put up with all the nonsense associated with starting new businesses and creating new jobs? Judging by recent behavior: evidently not.

If you want to see a bunch of rich people really get out there and hustle, I say, tax away most of their money. That kind of “start over” mentality worked for the immigrants and it will work for Kent and Buffy too. Nothing says “it’s time to produce” quite like the repo man showing up for your Bugatti Veyron.

But don’t think I’m without sympathy. While many captains of industry pay themselves salaries and bonuses and that amount to four hundred times the compensation their workers receive, they have some justification. First, with their access to quality health care, there is some chance that the rich will live four hundred times longer than will you.

Second, it is almost certain that a tax increase at this delicate time will hurt the economy. Think of it: If the top tax rate increases from thirty-six to forty percent, some of these folks will have to get by on six million dollars a year instead of six point four million! How they’ll do it is tough to fathom. Doubtless, that kind of drop in their net income will cause them to buy fewer iced mochaccinos on their way to the spa, and employ fewer sex workers when they get home.

As for not extending unemployment benefits: maybe not such a good idea. Yes, the latest extension will cost the US Treasury thirty billion dollars or roughly what we spend in Afghanistan in an afternoon. And yes, those receiving the aid will have less incentive to find a job, in so far as they can now to afford to eat. But you’ve got to look at the big picture here: it can be difficult to job hunt from a box under the interstate.

What about immigration and race? The second Bush administration used to argue that it was hard to address illegal immigration because illegal immigrants took the kinds of jobs that most Americans did not want. Clearly, W’s solution was to wreck the economy, because Americans want those jobs now!

It’s funny how the economy, jobs, taxes, the wars and immigration all come together. The only topic we haven’t touched on is race. It is an important topic, but one that is probably best left to thoughtful experts with deep, first-hand experience in racial discrimination: like Andrew Breitbart.

No doubt, it’s a going to be a long, hot summer leading up to the November elections and many questions will have to be answered. While we’ve tried to shed some light, the big questions remain, such as: Will Lindsey Lohan get out of jail in time to vote? Only time will tell.

The Green Lagoon, Part 4 of 4

2010-07-22T17:56:00.000-07:00

The Green Lagoon, Part 4 of 4

Quentin Smeltzer, SmeltzerNation 7/22/10

A few more weeks passed and Mike, the pool man, stopped coming around. The last time I saw him was the afternoon he suddenly appeared in our secluded backyard at the very same moment I chose to go sunbathing au naturel. I’m not sure which horrified him more: the uncontrollable green sludge in the pool or the sight of my white posterior on the chaise lounge. Either way: the horror, the horror!

The really scary thing is, it could have been worse…

Fortunately, Mike was alone this time, but the damage was done. Let this be a lesson to all of you, especially those in the company of women and small children. We love to see you, but do us all a favor: call ahead.

By my reckoning it was now day sixty two of the disaster with still no solution in sight. On top of that it was unclear who was in charge. Was it me, Mike, Admiral Thad Allen, Sean Hannity? And the frustrating thing was, we still had not stopped the growth of the green algae. An angry family demanded to know when the pool would be cleaned, but stopping the algae was clearly job one. We had to staunch the growth before we could even consider steps to clean it up.

Friends continued to chime in with suggestions: drain and refill the pool. Too costly. Shock the crap out of it. Uh, tried that (see Part 2). One expert warned that mixing different types of chlorine could form an explosive brew, rendering the entire pool unstable!

Others suggested that the Obama Administration was behind the green sludge. The reasoning was simple: force us to use our air conditioners, taxing the electrical grid to failure and thus calling into need new energy legislation… or something like that. It was the kind of logic only a political genius could follow: someone like Glenn Beck.

Finally, at day eighty eight there was a breakthrough! A friend of my wife suggested a new “Top Kill” method: two gallons of Diamond Clear Mega Shock, twelve point five percent sodium hypochlorite.

The procedure began in the middle of the night and an anxious family awaited the results with bated breath. In the morning I led a team of experts to the site, comprised of myself, my son, and our dog, whom I do not particularly care for (see Dog).

The cautious news rang out: the pool was blue! Cloudy, but blue! The spread of the evil, green contamination appeared to be stopped! The cleanup could commence!

But the cleanup soon revealed itself to be as daunting as stopping the algae spread. The pool filter constantly clogged with green mucous. When we ventured into the pool, the bottom was slimy and we kicked up great, green plumes as we walked. It all appeared hopeless once again.

Worried about neighborhood opinion, I bought advertising in the local paper pledging we would “do what it takes to make this right.” But I was roundly criticized for using my time and resources in this manner.

Desperate times call for desperate measures and so a new plan was devised. The new method, labeled the “Bottom Suck,” would be to vacuum the bottom inch of sludge, not through the filter, but out of the pool entirely. Recent rains had lifted the water level high enough that the experts (me) concluded that the audacious new attempt might succeed.

Other experts (my wife) objected that the super-chlorinated water might “kill the lawn.” This delayed the plan as feverish negotiations and recalculations took place.

Finally the new plan was approved, but with modifications mandated by the authorities (my wife, again). The following day my son manned the pump switch and the expulsion hose which would dump hundreds of gallons of contaminated water into a hastily improvised containment unit: our wheel barrow.

Execution of the plan was loud and messy but gallons of green water began surging into the containment unit. Each time it filled the procedure had to be stopped as I wheeled the green water to a “safe location,” whose precise whereabouts are known only by myself and certain high-ranking officials of the British Petroleum company.

As of this writing the pool remains blue but somewhat cloudy. The bottom is without sludge. The cleanup effort goes on. The impact may be felt for years, even decades to come. No one knows for sure what the full cost may be. What we do know is that expensive new rules and regulations will have to be put in place: This year, instead of closing the pool myself, I’ll have to pay a professional to do it.

Maybe I can get Mike to come back?

The End

The Green Lagoon, Part 3

2010-07-22T06:38:00.000-07:00

The Green Lagoon, Part 3

Quentin Smeltzer, SmeltzerNation 7/18/10

Leave it to the professionals: that’s my motto. If you want a robust economy, elect Republicans. If you want accurate news reporting, tune in to FOX. If you want safe, clean energy, turn to BP. So I awoke heartened Saturday morning by the knowledge that a professional was on the job. I had hired Mike, from Joe’s Pool Maintenance (not his real name), to eradicate the ugly, green, algae slick that had consumed the waters of our own little gulf, off the coast of our back deck.

Mike had asked for a down payment on his quote. I was thinking fifty dollars. Mike was thinking one hundred. “You can post-date the check,” he offered. I was thinking post-date it to the coming Friday. Mike was thinking Monday. As Monday was the first day he could cash the check, this wasn’t much of a post date. But one more glance at the angry, green invader destroying our summer told me this was no time to split hairs.

Saturday came and went, but no sign of Mike. Sunday was the same story. I continued to poor shock into the pool each night, ignoring the possibility that I might accidentally clean the pool and Mike might get the credit and the cash. This was no time for pettiness. Like Obama when he first took office, I didn't mind who took the credit. I wanted to work together. A good result would be a good result.

When Monday morning turned into Monday afternoon, with still no sign of Mike, I called Joe’s Pool Maintenance. No one answered, of course, this being one of those types of business that doesn’t need customers and thrives on torturing the pool fools who insist on being one. I left a message that more or less said the down payment I had given Mike was not to buy chrome polish for his Hummer. Crazy thought, but I was actually hoping their man might show up and work on the pool.

On Tuesday morning Allah smiled upon me and Mike appeared, this time driving a spanking new Ford Super Duty F-450 King Ranch pickup truck in gleaming burgundy, with a blinding chrome grill and matching, twenty-inch wheels. Ford’s website says the base price for this truck is sixty-two thousand dollars, making me wonder, yet again, why no one ever told me that the real money isn’t in computers, law or medicine; it’s in dealing with the stuff that doctors, lawyers and programmers can’t handle.

Happy to see Mike’s newfound practicality, and even happier that he had actually appeared, I ignored the fact that he came in tow with a barefoot, four-year-old girl wearing a stained, pink, party dress. She had long black hair and soulful eyes and only stared at me when I asked her name.

Still, I was eager to see Mike get to work. But first, it seemed, we needed to have a little talk...

Evidently not pleased with the phone message I had left, Mike informed me that he is Joe’s Pool service. Mike is Joe; got it. He also told me he is Joe’s Plumbing, Joe’s Electrical, Joe’s Handyman, etc. For any job, up to and including building a nuclear reactor in my basement, Joe was the man. Or Mike was. Good to know.

Mike set about pouring chemicals into the pool and barking orders at me. I needed to clean the pool filter. I needed to vacuum the pool. If I did all of the manual labor, Mike assured me, he would take care of the rest.

Mike guaranteed me that we would see a fifty percent improvement in the pool by Wednesday and then mounted the ascent to his pickup truck driver’s seat. The silent, little girl clambered up the other side like a Sherpa's daughter, and off they rumbled.

Wednesday morning dawned and we opened the blinds to see... pretty much the same, copper green water as the day before. Over the next few days Mike appeared at odd moments to pour chemicals into the pool and swear about our filter or the water pressure in our garden hose. He offered to work on our plumbing. I suggested we focus on the pool. “If this was easy,” I reminded him, “we wouldn’t need a professional.”

Mike bit his lip and departed. But not before insisting the third step of our pool was now visible instead of only the top two. Well… maybe.

Apparently the Green Monster was proving too much for our local entrepreneur. Days went by with no sign of Mike. A heat wave struck and my son and I swam in the green slime and showered thoroughly thereafter. My wife refused to go in and only glowered at me as she dabbed at the beads of sweat forming beneath her dark bangs.

To be continued…

The Green Lagoon, Part 2

2010-07-20T06:40:00.000-07:00

The Green Lagoon, Part 2

Quentin Smeltzer, SmeltzerNation 7/18/10

As the first installment of this saga closed, our pool was lime green, our local pool store had refused to sell me chemicals and young girls were paying no attention to me, unless they needed directions.

While my wife was happy with the third development, she was skeptical of the second, and extremely displeased with the first.

We began soliciting advice: lots and lots of advice. People may be reticent to discuss sex, politics and religion, but ask them about your pool problem and there is no shutting them up. Everyone in America—and I mean everyone—is a pool maintenance expert.

Most of the advice can be distilled to this: shock the crap out of it. And so I did, venturing out onto the back deck night after night to wave bag after bag of pool shock into the murky waters. Each morning I awoke and—like a middle-class American praying for good things from Republican policies—crept to the window and peered out, expecting to see our sparking blue pool again. Only to see: coast of Louisiana, summer of 2010.

My cheapness is legendary, at least around here, and so I began to perform calculations in my head. Let’s see, dumping forty dollars of shock into the pool, every night, all summer long, versus hiring someone to do this right… I needed quotes from local pool experts to complete the math.

I started calling and soon discovered that pool maintenance is one of those professions which, like plumbing or politics, requires no response to their customer base. No one picks up the phone, only answering machines. Fifty percent of the outfits I contacted never returned my call.

Of those that did, most did not want to come over. They preferred to give advice that can be distilled to this: shock the crap out of it.

One local, eager beaver was ready to jump in, so to speak. His name was Joe from Mike’s Pool Maintenance, or Mike from Joe’s Pool Maintenance. Since my name is Quentin, any name less exotic than Winthrop or Dakota really doesn’t register with me. I apologize.

Anyway Joe said he would come over after one P.M. One turned to two, turned to three, and then four. I was beginning to believe this was yet another sign from God, as I am sure God closely monitors the condition of my swimming pool. When all of a sudden Joe appeared in a chromed-out, full- sized, glossy, black Hummer.

“What kind of mileage does that thing get,” I asked. “Five?”

“Seven,” replied Joe, somewhat defensively. “Look, if I had to worry about the cost of gas, I wouldn’t drive it.”

Sounded reasonable enough. It also made me wonder why my high school guidance counselor never mentioned “pool boy” as the ideal occupation for me. I never even knew it was an option!

It also made me wonder how much Joe might charge me. One hundred and fifty dollars, plus chemicals, was the answer. Good enough. When can we get started?

Joe said I would see him tomorrow, Saturday. Great, I thought, watching eighty-five thousand dollars worth of gas-guzzling, chromed-out, social irresponsibility disappear down my driveway. This has to turn out well… doesn’t it?

To be continued…

The Green Lagoon, Part 1

2010-07-18T07:55:00.000-07:00

The Green Lagoon, Part 1

Quentin Smeltzer, SmeltzerNation 7/18/10

This summer, while the British Petroleum company has been destroying the Gulf of Mexico, my family and I have been experiencing our own ecological disaster right here in Connecticut: our pool is green.

For years our pool has been filled with crystal clear, blue water. That all changed at the end of last summer when we made the mistake of hosting a pool party. What ten children and a couple of adults did in our pool one can only imagine, but the effects were obvious. Within days our beautiful, blue pool began to morph into the dreaded Green Lagoon.

Reacting to this development required a trip to the local pool store, only, I won’t go to the store in our town anymore. My local merchant seems to believe that charging a four hundred percent mark-up on everything, so that he can make his annual income in the space of two weeks’ time, is the perfect business plan. Not only does he charge prices that would make a Kardashian choke, he serves up his goods with a healthy dose of insolence and a quaint lack of cooperation. The combination leaves me breathless.

I once went into his store with a water sample and a box of half-used chemicals. My plan was simple: show them what I had and buy only what I needed. Instead I was grilled about where I bought the half-used chemicals. Accusation followed interrogation. “Did you buy those here? You didn’t buy those here!”

Okay, yes, and?

They told me the chemicals I had were incompatible with the chemicals they sold. Evidently chlorine is not chlorine. Bottom line (hold on to your hats): they could not help me. They refused to sell me anything!

Okay, then…

I drove to a pool store in a neighboring town and spent a week’s salary there. I guess my local pool store showed me!

So it was off to the neighboring town again to nip the post-party problem in the bud. There, I was greeted as usual by a single, teenage girl manning an empty store. These girls, dressed in short-shorts and midriff baring fashion, come in one of two body types: slightly overfed or absolutely perfect. No matter. Either way I have reached the age when I am invisible to women under the age of thirty.

Within an acceptable time frame she put down her smart phone, tucked her gum into one cheek and ran our sample through the analyzer. Her manicured nails clicked on the computer keyboard. A print-out said I needed fifty pounds of this, seventy pounds of that, and maybe another fifty pounds of something else. Follow the instructions and all would be well.

The instructions, however, were problematic. They said to put five pounds of chemical A into the pool, wait eight hours and then put in another five pounds. They said to follow this procedure for chemical A, then for chemical B, and then for C. Performing some quick math in my head I realized that, if I never slept, I could complete this procedure by Christmastime. Assuring my wife that directions are for weenies, I dumped all of the chemicals into the pool at once.

The pool turned into an ominous, milky-gray sludge. It looked like the color the sky turns just before the tornado touches down. It was the end of the season so I decided to batten down the hatches, close it up, and let a good winter freeze make everything right again.

Over the winter, tragedy struck. The very expensive cover on the pool, only in its second season of use, ripped. Perhaps a metric ton of fallen leaves, buds, insects and bird droppings dumped into our own, personal gulf. When we pulled off the tattered remains in the spring, the ominous gray color was gone. The pool water was now the color of a lime green Popsicle. Our long, local nightmare had only just begun…

To be continued…

I Believe

2010-07-11T21:36:00.000-07:00

I Believe

Quentin Smeltzer, SmeltzerNation, 7/11/10

I believe the war in Iraq was a terrible mistake, a war of choice, and a diversion from the real mission in Afghanistan. I also believe it kinda, sorta looks like we won.

I believe that Afghanistan was the real threat. I also believe no good will come out of fighting a ground war in Afghanistan.

I believe that the Bush Administration stripped away regulation to the point where the BP disaster could occur. I also believe business should not be hampered by red tape and needless regulation.

I believe that every dollar of income over one million dollars per year should be taxed at eighty percent. I also believe that the day I make over one million dollars per year, the eighty percent tax rate cut-off should be moved up to three million dollars per year.

I believe that large corporations are making obscene profits. I also believe the corporate tax rate in this country should be cut to align with the rest of the world.

I believe that the Bush tax cuts should be allowed to expire. I also believe that the death tax should remain at zero, at least for a few more years, as my parents are getting somewhat elderly.

I believe that the Tea Party supporters are a peculiar cocktail of two parts stupid and one part crazy. I also believe a world of limited government, personal freedom and no taxes would be ideal.

I believe that President Obama is a transcendent figure in American politics who has achieved an extraordinary amount against enormous forces weighing against him. I also believe his presidency has been kind of underwhelming so far.

I believe Rush Limbaugh is a material threat to our civil society. I also believe he’s quite entertaining and he frequently makes me smile.

I believe America does not need tens of thousands of troops in Germany, Korea and Japan. I also believe it’s pretty cool we can kick ass anywhere in the world when we need to.

I believe Sarah Palin is a moron. I also believe I’d like to have her book sales and speaking fees.

I believe Chris Matthews asks his guests some very important questions. I also believe if he would stop shouting second, third and fourth rephrasings of these same questions at his guests, it might be interesting to hear their answers.

I believe that the military industrial complex is a dark and sinister force in American politics. I also believe I would jump at the chance to work for Sikorsky, Lockheed Martin or Raytheon.

I believe AIG executives should have been frog marched off to prison. I also believe the government should not do anything to impede our global competitiveness in the financial sector.

I believe Glenn Beck is an embarrassing idiot.

I believe religion is the opiate of the masses; a silly fairy tale for the weak of mind. I also believe God will save me if I pray hard enough when I really screw up.

I believe I am a right-of-center conservative. I also believe I am a proud liberal.

Opinion Poll

2010-07-08T12:13:00.000-07:00

Opinion Poll

Quentin Smeltzer, SmeltzerNation, 7/8/10

Yesterday a research firm called to conduct an opinion poll. I love to participate in these surveys because I believe that my views can bend the current “lunacy curve” toward my own brand of nuttiness.

The very first question the pollster asked was, “Do you write a blog in which you frequently state political views?” When I answered yes, the interview was over.

Apparently the opinions of people willing to state their opinions are not opinions of value. So I’ve decided to conduct my own research poll of myself.

Do you believe that John McCain is a spineless, pandering weasel?

Only if you look at his record.

Can you imagine a worse politician than John McCain?

Yes, J.D. Hayworth.

Do you believe that the way out of the current economic crisis is to cut taxes for the rich?

Oh yes, please, sir, may I have another?

Do you agree with the Tea Party that the role of the federal government should be dramatically reduced?

Absolutely: Roads, education, social security and healthcare are for weenies.

Do you believe that the United States should withdraw from Iraq and Afghanistan?

No! We need to increase exports, not decrease them, and our number one export these days is war, isn't it?

Do you think Linda McMahon will make a good senator for Connecticut?

Yes, she wants to cut taxes, eliminate regulations on business and drill, baby, drill: you know; the policies that worked so well for George W. Bush.

Do you think Attorney General Dick Blumenthal lied when he spoke of serving in Viet Nam?

Man, we were all in Nam! [cue “All Along the Watchtower” by The Jimi Hendrix Experience]

What is the current, number-one concern facing this nation?

Where Lebron James will play basketball.

If you could make one change to affect the future of the United States for the better, what would it be?

Revert to the original thirteen colonies.

Do you believe in capital punishment?

Only for Texans.

What recent criticism of President Obama from the right has been most damaging?

That he plays golf.

What do you think is the single biggest hope the Democrats have for retaining their majorities in the House and Senate?

Michael Steele.

Do you think consideration of skin color has any place in our politics?

Only if you are talking about Representative John Boehner of Ohio.

Suport the Troops

2010-07-05T07:37:00.000-07:00

Support the Troops

Quentin Smeltzer, SmeltzerNation 7/5/10

Not too long ago I was invited to join a Facebook group called “Support the Troops.” At the same time there is a homeowner not far from my house who proclaims this same message from his front yard with an enormous, hand-painted sign. Recently I heard a Fox News "repeater" wonder if Obama will support the troops by increasing the funding for the Afghan war. And I began to ask myself, do these people realize it is no longer 1973?

Who, exactly, in this country, does not support the troops? I’m not aware of any Screw the Troops or Call the Troops Mean Names or Arrest the Troops movements, are you? Not in this century.

So what exactly are you saying to me when you urge me to support the troops? First, of course, you are implying that I don’t the support the troops, which is deeply offensive. Second, you imply that, not just I, but some significant portion of the country, holds this We Don’t Support the Troops position. Who do you suppose those people could be? Let me take a wild guess here: progressives, liberals, Democrats?

But that’s bunk, of course, because the overwhelming majorities of these three, overlapping groups completely, vocally and without reservation, support the troops.

The group that would not support the troops, not on foreign soil anyway, would be the Tea Party folks. Their stark, libertarian philosophy calls for a rapid withdrawal of all US troops from around the world, regardless of the situation or cost in loss of security or human misery. If only the Tea Party folks were well-informed enough to know their own positions… but let’s not go crazy here. The Tea Party is about freedom and American rights, and first among those is that most deeply cherished American right: the right to be stupid.

A tea drinker himself, Michael Steele, chairman of the Republican Party, recently called Afghanistan Obama’s "war of choice" and said anyone who knows anything about history would not fight a ground war in Afghanistan. Evidently Mr. Steele believes it is clever to reread old criticisms of President Bush, replace "Bush" with "Obama," and then repeat them as new positions.

Steele's view of Afghanistan was news to Republican Senator Lindsey Graham who called Mr. Steele’s comments “unwise, uninformed and untimely.”

This is not the first time Mr. Steele has repudiated his own party’s position in public, only to quickly perform a one-hundred-and-eighty degree spin and then ask, mystified, what all the fuss is about.

As for the Fox News repeater who stared zombie-like into the teleprompter and questioned whether Obama’s support for the troops can be gauged by his willingness to give them additional funding, well, where does one begin?

First, I am completely in favor of cute blondes on television. But even I am disturbed by the glossy stare in their overly-made-up eyes as they read statements that contradict what they said the day or week or hour before with such regularity Michael Steele must be writing the news for them. I am beginning to believe that Stepford wives really do exist, manufactured in Roger Ailes's basement.

Second, this might come as quite a surprise to the Fox news repeater, if indeed any contradiction, news, or fact could upset or even penetrate the consciousness of one of these automatons, but Secretary of Defense Robert Gates—the guy asking for more funding—is of the Obama Administration. So Obama is asking for more money for the troops, not deciding whether to approve it.

And finally, must it still be pointed out that being against more funding for the troops is not a lack of support for the troops if it comes with a call to reduce their role? If you really want to support the troops, join the Tea Party, make Michael Steele happy, and bring them all home immediately.