Bathrooms, Corn Jerkers, and beer

 OK, I promise I will tie these three things together.  While for the past three or four days it has felt that we were heading home in some fashion, today that feeling became even more real.  We made it to La Crosse, WI, and are less than 200 miles away from Golden Valley.  It feels right to be where we are at, and we do want to be home.

We are not desperate to be there, though.  Interestingly enough, one of the main reasons why we are anxious to be home is that we REALLY want to be in our kitchen and cooking.  Honestly, we have talked about menus that would feed us for weeks!

It isn't like we have eaten food we have to had to unwrap for the past two weeks.  We tried to find at least one good meal each day and sometimes we even had more than that.  I limited my intake of biscuits and gravy and sometimes I even ate fruit!  A few meals were memorable and were good enough to influence future menus.  That was fun as we are pretty food-centric.

It has helped that we have stayed in pretty nice places.  Aside from one poorly chosen EconoLodge, we have had nice beds and usually they came with good breakfasts.  I have to say that hotel breakfasts have vastly improved over the years. And they have fruit!

 But being on the road and in hotels for this many days does provide a few good stories.  At the end of this post there is a video and a photo of two of the many hotel bathrooms we have experienced.  In the video of the toilet (don't worry) you can hear the woman who haunted that room SCREAM when the toilet was flushed. (sorry, but apparently I can't upload a video, but trust me it is funny)  The other photo is of a shower that we came across.  I am a huge advocate of grab bars in a showers because I am old and fear slipping in the shower as much as any one.  But this bathtub just confused me.  But no broken hips, so they worked.

Now I generally do not mention Corn Jerkers.  In fact, I don't think that I have ever mentioned them.  But in our meanderings in Illinois we came across Hoopeston Area School District, home of the Corn Jerkers.  Really.  We saw it and then drove around the block to make sure we saw it correctly.  Historically Corn Jerkers were men (!) who jerked corn.  This meant that they harvested corn by hand by jerking the ear from the stalk, stripping it, and tossing it in the wagon.  Really.  We always believe Wikipedia.  The mascot, a handsome corn jerker, is an ear of corn named Jerky.  This is all too good to make up. It is almost as good as the mascot of Fisher, Illinois, a neighboring town.  They terrified their opponents because they were the Fisher Bunnies.  They wear bunny feet on their uniforms. aas a sign of their fierceness and bunny-dom. We sure love the back roads.  

Today we snuck into La Crosse just ahead of Octoberfest.  While it isn't Munich, La Crosse has a pretty well-known knock-off fest.  Thousands pour into town to pour down beer, lots of it.  Tonight the city was peaceful, but tomorrow it will be a bit more crowded.  By the time the party starts, we hope to be home on on our patio starting our own Octoberfest, but until then, we will just enjoy the sunset.

 

Back in the flat lands and corn fields

 After a great dinner and night in Chillicothe, we finally emerged from the socioeconomic area called Appalachia and made it to the corn fields of southern Ohio and southern Indiana.  The change in geography is striking and honestly, appreciated.  I like curves and hills and even mountains but it is nice to drive straight roads for a bit

One thing that I haven't commented on but which has been a topic of conversation in the car is the role of religion in the region.  Man, there are a lot of churches!  And most of them aren't recognizable as mainline Protestant churches that the Upper Midwest has on many corners.  And perish the thought that there would a Papist church along highway 50.

On one level, that is fine. I think that I have told this story before about one of my mentors.  He joined the Mormon church while in college, and he was terrified about telling his father.  He finally gathered the courage to tell him, and his father looked at him and said, "so?"  He was amazed that his father was so accepting of this pretty big change.  He asked him about it, and his father said, "well, you never know if the other guy might be right." 

So who knows?  Maybe some of these churches do have the one answer.  But I suspect that these churches and some of the people are less accepting that I would hope.  The sign that caught my eye stated, "repent to Jesus or go to Hell."  I am guessing that these churches don't follow the secular humanism of "be good, be kind, love one another, and be careful of that log in your own eye.  

But I presume.  I can say for sure that religion is pervasive.  Besides the many churches, we even noticed  it in our hotel room.  The local guide that was on the desk at a pretty good hotel room in Chillicothe listed five local restaurants as possible places to dine.  The same guide listed 27 different churches.

We are now in West Lafayette, IN on a Tuesday night.  I have a bit of PTSD because in my grad school days I always had Tuesday night seminars or classes.  These were three hours of some mean intimidating professor asking if I read the footnotes on page 173.  Don't worry, I am over it.  I think that the fear faded once I was that mean intimidating professor asking about footnotes.

Tomorrow another vowel state as we cross Illinois.  We might even see more corn. 

 

We missed Mountain Mama and are now in Ohio

 We have left West Virginia  and headed west towards Ohio.  If you are confused about the title of this post, ask your parents or have a seance with Mr. Denver and they will explain.  One thing that I can say with absolute certainty is this.  If someone asked me what pretty drive could they take to see the fall colors, I would unreservedly suggest this:  Go to West Virginia, find highway 50 and head west.  That's all.  Just drive along highway 50.    We are about two to three weeks from dramatic color, but it is not hard to imagine that it will be spectacular.  It is spectacular, albeit a bit dangerous or thrilling, when it is still green so it was fun to imagine what it will look like in a few weeks.

It was a great day, but even more so because it started at a gas station restaurant called "Biscuit World!"  I saw the sign for this fine dining establishment last night when we were just driving into Clarksburg and I almost grabbed the wheel and forced us into the parking lot right then and now.  My normal restraint (and the fact that I don't have a cooperating pancreas) allowed me to wait until breakfast this morning for this gastronomical heaven.

All told, it wasn't that bad.  More carbs than any four people needed,  mainly because the biscuits were as big as an average toddler's head. We have had worse breakfasts for sure, but I didn't have the Big Tator breakfast--maybe that would have been better.  It did have a ton of gas station ambience and that is usually extra  They even advertised for film and batteries though they had neither.   I love that we could say we ate at a place called Biscuit World.  I wish they sold t-shirts--I would proudly wear one of those.  In XXL, of course, because I proudly eat at Biscuit World! 

We made it Chillicothe, OH, and we are steeped in Ohio history.  It was a very early white settlement and the city was the first capital of Ohio.  There are several histories of the city and if I were being generous, I would say that most of them conveniently "condense" 10,000 years of Native American history into simple stories of how Indians used to live here. Since I am not often generous when it comes to things like this, I would say that the local histories were whitewashed, and that is pretty sad.  It isn't unexpected but it is sad.

Tomorrow we have some decisions to make about direction and pace.  We have been gone for 13 days of joy and slow progress.  At this current pace, we would not be home much before Christmas.  Well, a bit before that but it is time to head north.  How we do that is still needs map-pondering and discussion.  But we are heading there.

 

 

Still meandering

 We are in Clarksburg, WV, and enjoying the night after a hard drive.  When I last wrote, three, maybe four, states ago, we were about to set out for someplace--we just didn't know where.  Several days ago we ended up in Stroudsburg, PA, an absolutely wonderful town.  We got there by our usual route, back roads and at least one mountain range.  Best of all, once we landed (metaphorically) we found a great Polish restaurant.  It was such a surprise to find such a place that I claimed it as our dinner destination.  It really was a nice place--very good food, great service and they provide a defibrillator to every one who orders the Polish platter.

Yesterday was more of a slog.  It rained, sometimes quite heavily.  We were enough inland to avoid the apparently epic Nor'easter that is plaguing the East Coast, but we still had rain most of the day.  We broke our rule and drove on the interstate.  We would have never made it through the rain on the paths we have been taking.  Our goal yesterday was to make it to Hagerstown, MD and we did, but we were tired, so tired we ate from a grocery store deli and called it a night.

Today we made it to Cumberland for breakfast..  One interesting "find" of the day was that Cumberland is the center of the flea market universe.  Two-plus hours later, we made it to Highway 50, our carpet for at least the next two days.  And once we on this road heading west, we entered into a part of the country that for many Americans is unimaginable.    

West Virginia is an interesting state.  It is either 49th or 50th in median income.  Minnesota is 14th.  Maternal mortality is twice the national average and infant mortality, especially for Black infants is fully twice the national average.  Highway 55 takes you right through this snapshot of this demographic nightmare.

We were struck by a whole munch of questions.  Just how do people survive?  Where do they obtain any type of reliable healthcare?  Where the heck are the schools?   Where do people work and earn money, and how do they afford $4.60 gas to travel the 50 miles to a place where you might find work or groceries or even a beer?  What do young people do?  If you were pregnant, where exactly would you go to allow your your infant survive?

This is systemic economic disparity, though we academics are often told not to use the word systemic.  All is poppies and marigolds and everyone can use those bootstraps to  move up a few economic levels.  I am a bit doubtful that this is possible and it is very sad.

While that view of West Virginia is dismal and even ugly, the simpler visual view along highway 55  is anything but ugly.  Misty vistas, steep winding roads, and views that take your breath away are commonplace.  Isn't that interesting is you can love the country but also, not love some of the underlying things that you just can't ignore.

Tomorrow we have more Appalachia to see and experience.    Here is a bit of trivia to end the post--how do you say Appalachia?  In Ohio, the most common way is to say  it like "apple at cha" though there are other opinions.  

More from the road tomorrow. 

 

 

Meandering

 So when we first talked about a road trip, we tossed around ideas as to what our final eastern destination might be. We talked about the "capitals" of New York and Washington D.C. but decided we did not want to deal with the traffic or frankly, the politics.  Kris had spend a whole professional career helping sell children's books and Eric Carle's museum in Amherst, MA seemed to be to be very mutually agreeable destination.

So we set out.  We have traveled more than 1300 miles and honestly, we have spent only about 3-400 miles on the interstate system.  Blue highways, indeed.  Yes, it is slow but it has been a blast.  And, 8 full days in, no one was left on the side of the road for even a few minutes.  I think that we are under our theoretical budget--lodging has been a bit higher than I thought it would be, but food has been less than I imagined.  Gas is just a disaster--we didn't plan on all of that, and I doubt that puzzle will be solved before we get back.  Thankfully, our new car gets great gas mileage, especially when you drive at 45MPH!  And thank heavens it isn't a diesel.  We would have had to turn around in Wisconsin.

Today was that museum.  It was beautiful.  The campus was carved out of another campus as it is on land once owned by Hampshire College. A side note, this is the last semester Hampshire College, which is still next door to the museum, will be open. It faced the harsh reality of shrinking enrollments and endowments and decided to close.  I fear that will not be the only small liberal arts college to face that cliff.

 The museum is significant.  Even in my VERY limited child care responsibilities I read The Very Hungry Caterpillar enough times to memorize the text.  And I didn't read about fireflies and blue horses and countless other creatures and stories from his more than 70 books.  Best of all, it designed for the primary customers of Carle's work.  Art work is child-high, there are opportunities to draw your own animal in a huge art room that overlooks an apple orchard. It was well worth the 1,300 mile drive.

 Getting there was half the fun.  We have both noticed a zillion farm stands along the way, and we have stopped at one before today.  We stopped at one today and bought peaches and maple syrup.  It was just beautiful.  We wished that we could just load up the car with pumpkins and apples and the fall flowers that this stand was selling.  These adventures fit in well with the other adventure of the day, like laundry.  Hey, we have been gone awhile!

We have mentioned the privilege that we have and have enjoyed on this trip and there have been many markers of this. Here is another--we have absolutely no idea where we are going and where we will be tomorrow.  We will be heading west, sort of, though we are going a bit southwest.  Sort of.  All we know is that we will have fun.

 

Catching up

 OK, I am a slacker. I didn't quite feel up to writing yesterday so now this post will be about 4,000 words.  Well, maybe not that long.  I am wordy but not that wordy.

Yesterday was Rochester and the George Eastman museum.  But first a bit how we have gotten across New York.  Trust me, New York has plenty of interstate to speed the traveler on their way no matter which direction they might choose to go.  We have chosen a slower path and we have been lucky enough to basically follow the path of the historic Erie Canal.  You know, a mule name Sal and 15 miles on the Erie Canal, if you can remember that ditty.  The canal was more than 300 miles long, much more if you add in all the spurs and and extensions.  

The Erie Canal spawned industries, such as they were, and countless small towns, all developed between 1820 and 1840.  We went through most of them and most were charming though somewhat tattered.  It is all such a historic "trail" to follow.

Rochester is a great city, and a wonderful example of a city that has reinvented itself as the colors of the city have faded from yellow and blue.  The George Eastman museum was stunning.  Great displays (they have an "ur-Leica" on display!!  Kids, ask your parents to tell you how cool that was!  If nothing else, it was fun to see a camera worth millions of dollars.  His house shows what you can do if you have more money than you need and very good taste.  I thought that the mostly matching pipe organs were a nice touch--of course you would want organ music in stereo.  Another highlight were the gardens.  They have been rebuilt and replanted  with flowers that were called for in the original designs for the garden.  And very carefully attended.  We saw more than 15 volunteers primping the gardens.

Today we made it through the mountains.  They weren't the Alps but they were pretty impressive to drive through.  The Green Mountains are genteel mountains compared to the Rockies or Cascades.  They have nice rounded summits and are covered with trees.  They still provided a thrilling ride with steep roads and intemperate curves.  They did not provide Kodak Moment turn outs for photographers so I do not have photographic evidence of the journey.  

 One spot we stopped at was in Bennington, Vermont, another one of the fore-mentioned charming little towns.  The Old First Church is the oldest church in Vermont, and it was well worth the stop.  Paid for by selling the pews in the church, it is an impressive building.  Built when the fervor of the Great Awakening was still shaping New England, it is a "plain" church.  No stained glass or painted walls, but impressive in other ways.  Clean lines, simple, well-balanced, and just peaceful once you are in the church.  It is not small.  Several hundred congregants would fit easily in the sanctuary. 

We are in Keene, New Hampshire tonight and tomorrow we head to what we have thought would be our destination before we head back west. Amherst, MA is nice this time of the year so we will check it out.

 

Falls and other stories

 Today was a touristy, honey-moonish kind of a day.  Our first destination was Niagara Falls, a destination which is many things to people.  The Seneca people in particular trace their occupancy to the area for more than 1,000 years, and other Native peoples considered the Falls sacred for literally thousands of years.

Starting in the 1800s, the Falls  became a romantic icon, first for newer Americans and later, a honeymoon destination for the world.  Even today, we heard countless foreign languages and license plates from across the United States filled the parking lot. People clambered as close as they could to the fences to get the absolute best selfie of themselves as the Falls thundered beneath them.  No one was harmed in this craziness but the potential was there for sure.

The Falls are magnificent!  Imagine big, and then supersize your vision.  While probably not as vision-stretching as first seeing the Grand Canyon, but Niagara Falls has sound and mist to compound the impact.  And, you can actually FEEL the Falls.  Pretty cool, as my students would say.

New York is an interesting state.  I have fallen into the stereotype of what New York is--you know, skyscrapers and all that.  Western New York looks suspiciously like much of Minnesota or Wisconsin.  Orchards, fields of corn, beans (and cabbage--really.  Lots of them) and farm stands.  At one such stand we bought apples and pears and passed on absolutely beautiful garlic, of all things.  Apparently garlic is a specialty of the area as we saw whole farm stands that advertised just garlic.

We know all this because really are traveling at 45 MPH, through hill and dale and every small town that you can imagine.That in itself is a major part of this whole adventure.  We are about 1,100 miles from Golden Valley and it took us five days to get this far.  We are slow, but that is OK.  We say again and again that we actually get to see and experience where we are rather than just whizzing on by at 75 MPH  on the interstate.

We have stayed at some great places and yesterday we noticed a big difference between the upper-Midwest and the "East."  We went out to eat and were at the bar before heading to our table.  We were chatting with the bartender who no doubt was one of the international hospitality interns that this major chain cycles through their properties.  We asked about a brandy old fashioned and he shocked us by saying that his pretty well stocked bar had no brandy!  Could you imagine a major hotel chain in Wisconsin saying "nah, we don't have brandy!"  We are in the land of heathens.

Tomorrow is a museum day as we head to the George Eastman House.  It is an archive, an art museum, and even a camera museum!  I have lots of reasons why I want to see this, but I also see how important Kodak was/is to American history.  For generations "Kodak" was noun meaning camera, and its film (and cameras) recorded what was going  on in the world.  The whole world.  I know I have sent enough of my money over the years to Rochester...I still do, actually.

After tomorrow, our trip becomes a bit more uncertain.  We may go through states that aren't on the direct path of our final eastern destination just so we can say we went through these states.  Now that is privilege, especially at $4.75 a gallon. 

The photo is from the Bridal/American Falls.

 

 

Some general observations

 We are in Niagara Falls, and loving it.  A nice hotel along the river just down from the Falls apparently came with an excellent bar and a great restaurant, both of which made this landing spot even better.  We had a nice walk in actual sunshine along the river, and really did enjoy a very good dinner.

First, a correction.  We assumed that the Buffalo Bills were playing today, and we tried to avoid Buffalo as we approached Niagara Falls.  We saw all the signs--full hotels, many people wearing Bills gear, and signs and flags everywhere touting the Bills' mafia.  One set of directions led us directly through Orchard Park, the home of the Bills.  However, we found that the traffic died down a bit since the Bills played on Thursday night!  Bills fans are just slightly crazy.  Viking fans are a bunch of pikers compared to Bills fans.  It did help with traffic, though.

We were truly on "Blue Highways" today.  We wandered drom Erie, PA to Niagara Falls mostly on highway 20 and highway 39, small town  to small town, from 30MPH to 45MPH  to occasionally 55 MPH and back to 30MPH.  One of the most interesting thing that we saw were the HUGE vineyards!  We have been so used to going through corn and bean fields that it was really interesting to see miles and miles of nothing but grapes, rows and rows of grapes.  Much of north east Ohio and western New York is wine country, though I suspect without the pretentious nature of Sonoma. 

Another random observation is that across the vowel states of Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio, wind turbines and solar  farms dominate the landscape.  Despite the current administration's efforts to diminish alternative energy, the boost in these sectors by the previous administration really took hold.  In sime areas, huge turbine blades are the dominant feature across the landscape.  

Tomorrow is a sightseeing day.  We will head to the falls and see what we can see.  Tomorrow night we will be in Rochester where we will visit the George Eastman museum.  I suppose that is sort of the yellow mecca for photographers and I am really excited to see it.  I hadn't even thought about seeing this until today when I realized we were less than 90 miles away.

 The photos are simple.The first is of the vineyards which were fascinating, mainly because the concept of growing grapes at this scale is so different from the agriculture that we more commonly see in Wisconsin and Minnesota.  The second photo is from our riverfront walk, where we were joined by Jonathon, who just walked a few feet ahead of us along the boardwalk.

 

What I think about on a cloudy rainy day

 Today was a long ride in the car--it rained at windshield-wiper-on-high rate and the Ohio Department of Transportation justified its existence by making sure that they placed plenty of orange things in the road.  All that, and our choice of roads (we try to avoid the interstate) meant that we traveled at about 45MPH for much of the day.

That is OK.  Some might call that a slow pace but I prefer calling it a contemplative pace.  It allowed us a pretty good peak at NE Ohio and it was interesting and informative.  First off, red state or not, not all of Ohio is doing well.  Our route took us through countless small towns with Main Streets that were often filled with for rent signs or just empty buildings.  Even some of the really cute towns that showed civic pride and lots of work showed some serious wear around the edges.

But then we also drove though suburbs with multi-million dollar homes and past marinas filled with boats that were decidedly not filled with 14 foot Lunds with Johnson 25 horse engines. Certainly there will always be those contrasts but some of these were pretty jarring.

If I could be a prognosticator of big broad things, I might say that it feels like rural America is in real trouble.  We have been aghast at the gas prices.  We have regularly seen prices in the $4.70's for unleaded.  That hurts when you are on a 2,000 mile+ road trip.  But our angst at rapidly rising gas prices pales compared to what farmers are facing.  At a Pilot truck stop, the credit price was $7.09.  In February, the price was $3.89 a gallon.  I am just not sure how, if you are a farmer, you can successfully budget for a price change like this, especially at harvest time.  Add to this you would need to figure out where exactly you can sell your crops if you can get them off the field.  Ahh, tarrifs...

This just sets the stage for future challenges.  Much of the fertilizer that provides the foundation of an ag economy comes through the Strait of Hormuz or is made from natural gas.  You don't need to read many issues of the New York Times or the Economist to understand why farmers are boosting the sales of anti-acids.  And to understand the fragile nature of the rural economy.  So when we were driving through all those fields of corn and beans, we had had lots of conversations about just how do farmers manage all of this.

But since we were driving at a contemplative pace, we were contemplative as we drove through the rain.  All this made us wonder about just what the way forward for this segment of America is or will be.  Certainly we reached no conclusions other than there are very dark clouds on the horizon.  

After all that, we landed in Erie, PA.  Hotel rooms were a bit scarce because people were staying here so they could go to the Buffalo Bills game tomorrow.  It was a bit tense as we had to manage my birthday dinner.  The first hotel had an Arby's nearby but we aimed a bit higher than that.  The hotel we found was right next to a country western bar and grill.  We were prepared for the menu, the dance floor and even the Saturday night karaoke but we simply were floored by coming into a bar and restaurant that allowed smoking!  Seriously, it was smokier than Irish pubs of the 1980s.  We skipped that and had a great dinner at the Taste of Asia, a smoke-free dinner, I might add.

Tomorrow is Niagara Falls and environs.  It should/will be fun. 

 

 

Things that you see when you looking for something else...

 This is day two of our road trip, and it was a great day.  We started in the (not) bustling town of El Paso, Illinois.  It is cute, I guess, in a grain farming kind of way. El Paso does have a an exceptional Carnegie library, and several hotels that probably should not have made the Expedia list. 

From El Paso we headed due east on the type of highway we prefer.  Highway 24 was drawn by a ruler across a landscape that changed only when the corn field transitioned into a soybean field.  The starkness and the flatness of the land is so different than what we are used to in Minnesota.  It has its own beauty for sure, but I can't imagine what it is like in winter.  It would be nice to have a tree or two for shade or to block the wind a bit.

It was even more striking because of the light.  It was misty and foggy this morning and while these photos don't do justice to the light, it was amazing.  I am not on my usual laptop and I

 feel it when editing.  I do think that you can see that things in the distance just fade into the mist, especially with the photo of the school bus.

To tie all this to the title of this blog, you have to look at the last three photos.  Indiana uses a type of crushed limestone on its secondary roads which make them almost white.  I wanted a photo of one of these roads heading into the darker sky.  I tried for that, and I don't think it worked all that well.  Then, when I was looking for that, I was visited by this hawk.  I will re-edit this sometime but it really was striking to see it float towards me.

 I am out of practice taking photos, that is for sure.  It isn't my camera, but the flaws are in the taking and the editing.  This is the perfect trip for me to practice and work on the holes in my technique.  We are so blessed--we have all the time in the world, we are just really wandering east, and both of us have a great sense of humor.  What more do you need? 

 

Testing, Testing, Testing 1,2,3...

 So someone said it has been years since I last posted, but it has only been about 20 months.  My, how people exaggerate...  But it has been a bit.  That is probably for many different reasons but probably just because I am lazy and unmotivated.  It is not because I have not had monumental changes to write about.   We got married, I am mostly retired, and I guess the world is in disarray.  All these should have been fodder for the mill, but here we are.

 Today we are heading out for a semi-epic road trip.  It is hardly the years-long Homeric odyssey recent in those moving pictures, but more two weeks of "Blue Highways."  We have no real plans except to head east and then head west to get back home.  So I thought that I would try and document some of the adventure.  

  I first had to see if this blog was still accepting submissions and that my cameras worked.  So far so good.  The photos are of the last gasps of our front yard.  It is still beautiful even as it more faded than it was six weeks ago.  We, and the bees and the monarchs (it was an epic year for Monarch butterflies) love it still.  Click to see them in a larger format.  Write if you have questions or comments.

More from the road in the next few weeks.

 

Compare and contrast and then evaluate

 

 In my classes, I often used the question structure of "compare and  contrast, and then evaluate..."  It is a useful question and taught bigger and more important skills than just gathering facts. It gave students a method or a rubric that they could use throughout their lives.  With this structure, you can determine the value of things, the correctness or "rightness" of most things.  So, which car to buy or where to go to college or where to live.  And, I suppose and fervently hope, who to vote for and who to respect as a leader.

I freely admit that the process is important but I have to say that it doesn't always lead to the best or right conclusion.  Some people have other inputs which affect the results.  Today seemed to me to be a perfect example or opportunity, though, to use this process.

One one hand, you have Jimmy Carter.  The many recent eulogies have listed his many identities:  son of Georgia, farmer, father, husband, veteran, businessman, representative, governor, president, peacemaker, builder, Christian, and many other selves which made the man.  And remember, those earned titles of who he was came with many, many, adjectives, most of them positive. Loving, faithful, successful, caring, dedicated, honest, servant, and humble were just some of these adjectives that celebrated the man.  None called him perfect as he wasn't, but when you compare or contrast him to many, well...

Many or most of us lack in our lives compared to Carter's.  At best we need to look at his life and see it as aspirational and something to work towards.  I struggled today, though, because it is our nature to compare and contrast presidents and with Trump and Carter, the differences are stark.  It was particularly jarring today as I read today's news.  Trump, as a venal, dishonest, convicted felon in 75 minutes denigrated the whole judicial system, threatened our neighbors with territorial expansion, ignored 75 years of the greatest military and political alliance ever, lied about elections, the economy, his record and and and...  This is just a brief recap-- an actual transcript is terrifying.  More than anything, if you compare and contrast and then evaluate the two men, I at least, find one former president lacking in character and content.

So what?  That's a good question.  The crux of this rant is that we need to keep comparing and contrasting and then evaluating.  I suspect that there will be plenty of differences in which to apply this rubric.  I think that we could do a bit better evaluating.  Some people are simply lacking in all those positive adjectives ascribed to the man we are honoring today.