Reading Rural Road Signs

We live in an old farmhouse along the Upper Hudson River.  There are not many neighbors – it is an agricultural community and most of the land goes to the cattle, sheep, and horses, or is planted with feed corn – but when I take my morning bike ride along the river I pass a number of houses on my twelve mile roundtrip.

The ride takes me about an hour.  It is beautiful.  It is a great time to think (the road has very little traffic so I don’t have to be hypervigilant).  It is a super workout.  Any one of those would be good reason but, taken together, it is a compelling package.

As election season approaches I’ve paid attention to roadside placards and signs.

Most notable is the absence of political messages. I see more signs for satellite TV firms – and “Another Job by Overhead Door” or For Sale – than anything else.  A few local candidates have become visible and, the kind of thing you might only notice after passing by daily, there are zero mentions of political party.  None.  Lots of red, white, and blue but no Republican-this or Independent-that. “Fighting for Upstate!” and “Your Voice!” are outnumbered by pro-gun, privatize horse racing, and “don’t let The Dollar Store build here!” pleas.

Before the weather became too chilly, I’d often see couples on their porches having morning coffee and watching the sun rise over the river.  I might say hello to this guy as he goes to his mailbox.  I did become friendly with some of the county road crew as they repaired a section of guardrail along the river.  And folks would wave at me as I peddled by.  It is that kind of place.  In fact Grandma Moses lived across the river from here.

So, there is one – one along my entire route – presidential lawn sign.  I pass it each day.  It has been right by the road for weeks: “Make America Great Again.”

The other day as I passed the house the couple was sitting on the porch.  My wife and I had been introduced to them at a local restaurant earlier in the summer. Like so many people out here they were simply nice, down-to-Earth folks. I waved and peddled on, beginning to think “I wonder why they support Donald Trump? What do they see in that guy?”  Do they support him because they like him or because they don’t like Clinton? Are they aware of his career of bankruptcies, his financial opaqueness? Questions like that bounced around in my head as I hit the mid-point of the ride and turned to head home….

It was a beautiful day.  As I almost always do with a good bike ride, I was feeling pretty mellow, alive, good. I rounded a bend in the road and saw the Trump sign, and slowed to a stop by the house, its porch close to the road, as many older rural homes were built in the 19th Century. 

The couple – Judy and Bill – was still there and I said hello.  They acted a little surprised that I’d stopped but gave me a friendly hello back. I’m sure I looked dorky with my little bike helmet on and the combo of that and my sweaty smile was, I hoped, reassuring.

I said “hey, good morning, how are you? I’m Dan, we met at the Anvil.” “Right, yes, we watch you biking around.  Good for you!”

“Ha, thanks, it is good, I’ll see how far into fall I can push it!” and then I said “hey, I’m not a political guy but, do you mind if I ask you a question?” Without a pause Bill said that was no problem.  So I nodded at the Trump sign and asked “I really haven’t seen any signs for the presidential race around and I was wondering, like, what’s the reason you are pro Trump?” No response right away and I pointed at the orange newspaper tube (for the local Glens Falls paper) on their mailbox and said “well, I mean, I’m just reading all this stuff in the paper and….”  So Bill said “well, you know, really I guess it’s we have had enough of the Clintons, and I know he says some crazy things but I like what he focuses on.” Then he brightened up: “Here you go: guns, I don’t want anyone messing with that, damn Cuomo did more than enough there.”

Ok, fair enough, for sure.  There are a lot of gun owners around here: I hear the target practice and see the guys in camo heading into the woods with rifles.  Leaving Cuomo’s “Safe Act” out of it I said “I can’t find any clues about what he would do if he won, I mean here’s a guy who’s never run for public office or worked in government so I wonder how he can know what to do to get his agenda done. I could worry about a president who doesn’t know what he doesn’t know.”

(I decided to skip mentioning that Donald wanted to date his daughter and "etc" -- I might need their help getting pulled out of a snow bank this winter and didn't want any "P word" talk to keep me stranded! :o)

I paused and added “and when Clinton was our senator she was popular, she and Schumer did a lot for us.  Honestly, I can’t find one good reason – especially after Dick Cheney “lost” millions of emails – she’s tanked in so many peoples’ eyes.”

A funny thing happened.  Judy shrugged and said “You know, I really don’t have an answer to that one.”

We bantered back and forth for a few minutes and I think there was something so relaxed, reasonable, and non-judgmental about my questions I sensed that the conversation kept going, at least a little while, after I moved on.  I felt a neighborly calm dialogue raised some questions that the hosing of the 24/7 news-feed hadn’t left space for.

We shifted gears and chatted about how time seems to go by faster every year, about how hard it is to make much sense of anything, with so much craziness going on around the world… and I felt a kind of loose “best of a lousy choice” agreement hanging in the air as I pushed off on my bike yelling “TGIF!” over my shoulder.

On weekends my wife and I like to take daytrips – though sometimes she bikes with me – so it was a couple days until I peddled by that house again.

The Trump sign was not there.

Was I right, had our discussion made them rethink their position? Did someone steal it? Or did they take it down to help them avoid the entire issue, just like the majority of our neighbors?

We all better be very careful of what we don't think of when we vote, especially this year.

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