#590 – Dick Bernard. July 4. "God has blessed America" and other signs.
Happy 4th of July. Most likely I’ll be walking in a parade unit in Afton MN, supporting the candidacy of U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar. Campaigning is tough on the best of days, but July 4, for a statewide candidate, is truly impossible. So, I’ll walk and people watch and in Afton there’s the additional benefit of seeing the parade on the return trip.
I am one of these people who are interested in signs of all sorts.
Driving in northwest Minnesota last week I saw a most interesting sign painted on a farm outbuilding.
(click to enlarge)
June 24, 2012 northwest Minnesota
Certainly the owner had a strong sense of what the saying meant, since such signs have to speak for themselves: the passer by is passing by, after all. But this sign is puzzling. I won’t even try to interpret it (but I would be interested in your comments.)
It was just one of several interesting signs I saw, just in the month of June, 2012. They join an endless succession….
On June 2, up at Skunk Lake for my sister’s 40th wedding anniversary, I saw a guitar case owned by a lady from out near Evansville MN:
at Skunk Lake June 2, 2012
I’m a Vet for Peace, and I noticed that decal on the case. (The singer, Patti Kakac, is a gentle and marvelous soul. She and her friends Anne Dunn and Sharon Henneman, gave some marvelous entertainment.) Here’s more about Patti and her music.
Sharon Henneman, Anne Dunn, Patty Kakac at Skunk Lake June 2, 2012
June 28 came a long and marvelous visit with R. Padre Johnson, someone I’d heard about only recently. Padre, a cowboy, painter, PhD, Minister, Special Forces medic in the toughest part of Vietnam during Vietnam War, spent an hour and a half with me before beginning his drive back home to Cody, WY.
R. Padre Johnson, June 28, 2012, in Bloomington MN
As we chatted, he held a goblet made by my Uncle Frank Bernard on the USS Arizona, sometime before December 7, 1941.
Somehow it seemed appropriate.
Padre’s specialty is the Family of Humankind. He’s been, he says, to 139 countries, spending quality time with people in their own environments.
Spend some time at his website. I have a copy of his book, “The Global Human Family” and while published in the 1990s, it is as current as today. Humanity is, after all, quite consistent, and even allowing for cultural differences, we’re very much all of one family.
Which leads me back to that first photograph, of that wall on the farm building.
What DOES it mean?
Oh, so much is open to interpretation, like two signs I saw on two sides of a tavern door a couple of weeks ago.
The one sign, permanent, said as I recall “Mexican food every Wednesday”. On the frame of the door as we exited the tavern was a handwritten one, impossible to miss: “No Mexican food on July 4” (which, of course, just happens to be a Wednesday).
What did those signs mean?
I wanted to take a picture, but didn’t have the guts….
Have a great 4th. I do wonder what menu is replacing “Mexican” at the tavern today.
French Fries?
God bless us all, everywhere.
Dick, thank you for the mention and attaching a photo of me that I really like. I take dreadful pictures because I am always trying to think of something to say.
But what I wanted to share is that when I was much younger I traveled from Chicago to Houston with a vet for peace. We were on a mission for Pastores La Paz. We went to raise awareness of the terrible situation in Chiapas. We spoke at several stops along east coast and gathered so much medical supplies and examination tables that we had to throw the seats out of our bus! When I think of his name I will let you know. He was from Washington state. We had several dreadful disagreements but we parted in peace.