♫Sign, sign, everywhere a sign....♫

[captainsblog]

I didn't post these last time, but they fit the theme of messages I've seen over the past couple of days. Saturday dawned pretty hot and humid, so I kept Pepper's walk to a quick hop around our own block. There, on a neighbor's lawn, I saw the first of these messages to arrive on our street:



That seems to cover most of the bases; we're looking into getting one of those ourselves.  We're also looking to get an additional symbol for the house which I've been meaning to for some time, as the owners of that sign also have:



For most of the past four years, during the '16 campaign and since, I've been troubled by the co-opting of our national symbol by the lunatic fringers who put oversized Betsy Rosses in the empty beds of their F-150s and park them illegally.  I even posted this about it not quite four years ago this week:

Finally, the unity in that United States flag is falling between the cracks of those 13 stripes.  We are not one nation but at least two- one looking forward to being the best we can be to all of our people, the other looking back to "make America great again" when "great" meant "white, churchgoing, toeing the line and doing what GM says is good for the country."

That's not what the Stars and Stripes stand for, Bubba.  So you'll forgive me if I don't salute when your truck passes by. And if I'm not offended when some bullshit set of homeowners association rules result in some apartment tenant (who just happens to be named Samuel Adams) being asked to take his American flag down because it violated decoration rules, becoming a right-wing media darling in the process.  (It's the Land of the Free, Sam. You are free to move someplace where there are no such stupid rules.)

I also did some checking among non-US friends a few weeks ago, to get an idea of whether this co-option of the national flag was a Thing beyond our borders.  By and large, it seems, it is not.  I got responses from Canada, the UK, Sweden and Japan. Other than them referencing a comparatively small number of Brexit nutters in England, their national symbols remain untainted- and even that lot don't drive round with huuuuge Union Jacks (or St. George's Cross English ones if you really want to piss people off) in the backs of their pickups- mainly because with petrol around 6 bucks a US gallon, you don't drive one unless you need to). The only other exception is for World Cup soccer season, when the entire planet goes insane.

I pledged allegiance to that Flag every school day for 13 years, and to the Republic for which it still stands. Not the quasi monarchy that most of the crazies seem to want it to stand for now.

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I then did not see signs for a blood drive, but I knew there was one, at our former church in the village, so while Eleanor toiled in the yard, I drove over to do my pint.  Sadly, nobody goes to blood drives anymore; they're too crowded.  The slots were all booked, so I am checking with the home office about another platelet draw.  While in there, I did stop up the stairs briefly to see if anything looked changed in the year or so since I last wandered in for two friends' retirement service (one of whom has now passed). Nope, but I did pick up a much thinner church directory from a narthex counter, and despite the Methodist hierarchy  making it virtually impossible to excommunicate yourself from the fold, we have apparently hit the three-year tolling of the bells and have now been purged from the records.

I felt far more of a sense of loss over this:



That's at the corner of a county road leading into our neighborhood and the state highway I once turned right onto every Sunday to get to that church, and which I now drive by maybe once a week.  No idea how long it's been like that; Eleanor thinks there was a smaller home somewhere behind the forestry, a theory confirmed by it already having a mailbox out by the road.  Next to that, the calling card of them wot done it:




I had a client by that last name a few years ago, but the proprietors of this Jurek-ick Park appear to be a different bunch, although probably related.  I heard not a peep about this clear cutting until the deal got done.

Maybe the Planning Board needed to put up a bigger sign.

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It was a little cooler come Sunday morning, so we picked a new park, or maybe several wild animals parks, for our weekend walkabout. The local Little League has a complex of ballfields right next to where the 90 and 290 intersect a couple miles from our home. This is looking to be as close to a baseball game as we're gonna get this year, so when we first got there, I let Pepper take her first run around the bases- except there weren't any other than home plate;)
 

Watch on YouTube

Ursula arrived after that, and got the side out without any further runs being scored.



I've been by these ballfields millions of times, either on the highway flyovers or occasionally on the road leading to them, and in season they are invariably packed with kids, parents and, yes, even umpires.  Now, the Men in Blue share the signs with the Men in Masks:



It didn't look like games had been played here all season, but the grounds were mostly in good shape, and there were the occasional signs of somebody having recently addressed the ball:



Hel-lo, ball!

Honeymooners joke too old? How about Police Squad? (In color!)



Yes, I know!

The other defining feature of this complex is the edifice behind center field on the big boy playing field:



It's been known to generations of local traffic reporters simply as "The Big Blue Water Tower," marking the spot of thousands of accidents as the 290 east meets (mostly) the 90 west in six lanes of michigas and probably now holds the title of Worst Designed Intersection In The State.

We got closer:



Despite all that H2O in there, there wasn't a single drop to drink anywhere near it, although the grounds around it were pretty lush, as Ursula proceeded to investigate:



We headed back to the ballfields to meet up with our missing mutt Jake, who'd gone to the wrong ballfields.  This gave me time to check out, what else, more signs on the outfield fences:



(Niiiiiiice!)

and



(It's the one beer to have when you're having more than 12! Hopefully not 12 year olds!)

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Now it's Monday of a short week.  We'll see what messages arrive between now and the 4th, or 3rd, or whenever we're celebrating.