Now that I’m used to getting up at 5:14 AM for work I decided instead of dropping off the car last night for the oil change and general check before the inspection sticker to drop off my car at my mechanic’s early this morning and walk to a local diner where the waitress was surprised to see me alone as I’m normally there with my wife (off at work) or my priest (saying mass). As the election is close and she sees people daily I asked her what she was seeing.
She said things tended to vary depending on what people do but a lot of their regulars were doing OK (lots of contractors) and that in general for their base it wasn’t as bad as it’s been.
It wasn’t the answer I expected but that’s fine. I ask questions to get data point not confirm prejudices or advance agendas.
After breakfast I walked back down to the mechanics garage. He had since arrived and said my car would be ready around 9:30. When I returned after a sojourn at my sons house nearby the car was ready and would despite its age pass Massachusetts rigorous inspection on it’s first try.
But the real story came when we discussed the idea of him getting an apprentice as he had been doing this for 30 years. He told me that young folks simply weren’t interested in doing the work because that’s what the job was, long work and the few that did were snatched up by dealerships that could pay more.
It will be a sad day for me when he eventually retires, but I suspect by that time my driving days will be done.
After my inspection I ran some errands and headed out for lunch. On my way I spotted something interesting. A while back the daughters of Sabino the baker whose bread we used to buy as a kid and whose bakery burned down in a fire in my early teens, opened up a place in Leominster named Tre Sorelle which was an Italian food and items specialty shop. Sabino himself used to come in once or twice a week and I was able to buy the bread I had as a youth and give my sons a taste of it. The place closed a long time ago and has been empty, drove by today and saw it’s been transformed to a fast food place called Billy Bob’s.
Times, tastes and populations change.
Speaking of tastes changing I found myself in the mood to re-read Bernard Cromwell’s Sharpe’s Eagle or Robert Graves’ I Claudius or one of the later C. S. Forester’s Hornblower books during lunch. As I arrived at the restaurant 10 minutes before they opened and there was a Barnes and Noble’s 3 minutes away I ducked over to search for one of the three to pick up.
When I checked the fiction section the only one of the Sharpe’s books there was Sharpe’s Tiger the only Hornblower Book was Mr. Midshipman Hornblower which I had at home & wasn’t in the mood for and neither I Claudius or the sequel Claudius the God were in sight.
As little as 20 years ago it would have been unthinkable for a fiction section of a large bookstore to be deficient in any of those volumes but again, time and tastes have passed me by.
Finally you might remember the rather ugly split between Project Veritas and James O’Keefe who was the founder and face of the organization.
As you might have heard James being James he’s has continued on with his work even infiltrating the DNC this month and exposing some very iffy stuff from Act Blue concerning donations details of which you can find at OMG (O’Keefe Media Group).
but apparently Project Veritas is also still soldiering on and has an expose with a Lawyer who appeared for the FDA admitting on an undercover video that they abused their authority
I’m pleased Veritas is soldering on as it’s better to have more than one group doing that job that the media used to do.
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