Auto Known Better ancient Around Town

from Front Porch Fredericksbrug July 2023

by Virginia Grogan

BizMarketing

Gary Goose

Language Of Lawns

By Rim Vining

from "Dan Your Local Insurance Man" or promotions for better yields on passbook savings from your "Hometown Bank?"

How come we only have Independence Day? Freedom once tasted cannot be erased. We cannot un-see things, we cannot un-say things and we certainly cannot un-hear things. Words matter above all other things yet we only get one day?

Fireman's Parades were the staples of the boomer years. The parades were filled with firetrucks and sleek convertibles loaded with smiling hometown queens of one persuasion or another. All of them smiled and waved… elbow, elbow, wrist, wrist, as their heads turned slowly from side to side with a never waning smile. And they wore long gloves in the July heat! VFW bands and brigades marched and played and everyone waited for the clowns or the Shriners on their miniature motorcycles and go-karts and we thought the sun would never set so the fireworks could begin.

About the same time of year we heralded the arrival of the Fireman's Carnival. They were something we seldom saw. The trucks rolled in one day carrying all manner of brightly painted metal bits and pieces. They set all this up in someone's field and by dark the lights were on and the rides were spinning. The sounds of amusement park music and the smell of cotton candy and popcorn are etched in the mind. You cannot un-see the sights nor un-hear the sounds of your first 4th of July celebration. It was magical. So why only do that for one day? It makes no sense.

Wouldn't it be nice to go to work one morning and see a few sleek convertibles with smiling youngsters in long gloves waving as if they have not a care in the world! Would you wave back? Would they have the same "sponsor" signs on the doors promoting life insurance autoknownbetter@gmail.com

Freedom and independence are something we have in the U S that we definitely take for granted . We are free to choose what we do for a livelihood and which car we want to drive and where we might want to go for a vacation. It's not always equally shared by all citizens so that part still needs a lot of work but opportunities exist here that do not exist in all parts of the globe.

So it's baby steps. What can we do for ourselves that might open our eyes to more opportunities to enjoy our independence every day? Start small.

I may have mentioned before there was an article in Car and Driver magazine years ago extolling the freedom one found in mowing the lawn The writer viewed that as the one place in his life where he was not bound by anything more than not flipping the mower over and getting hurt. He could mow in any direction at any speed and at any time of day or night. Boats have channel markers and maritime rules. Planes have all manner of rules even at 10,000 feet. Cars need even more rules if the craziness we deal with daily on our roads is any indication and the new "self-driving" features give us even less independence.

But cutting grass, ahhhh….. we had a nephew living with us for a while who has a wonderful free spirit. When you looked out the upstairs window while he cut the grass it looked like crop circles and hieroglyphs sending message into space. The ancient language of lawns.