Parking Lot Politics

Me, Recording Parking Lot Politics

Taking Politics on the Road with 4WD

Tailgate Political Portfolios

Some Slogans Fades But Never Die

No Bumper Sticker? Paint Your Own

Hubby Just Needs a Stick Horse and a Horn

Just Being Silly

By one definition, politics are the "art and science of government organizations." By another, they are "factional scheming for power and status within a group (as in, office politics)." To be political is to "take sides" and this is where politics loses any appeal to me.

While I get frustrated with the politics of this nation, I love this nation with its amber waves of grain and its diverse swatches of people. I'll serve as a citizen, but I won't get political in the partisan sense. But I'm not here to discuss, debate or digress on politics.

Today is "Silly on Sunday" so I'm going to poke fun at parking lot politics in northern Idaho. It's that grand arena where trucks become mobile campaign slogans and politics rebuke from rusted tailgates.

Yesterday, my husband had me drop him off at the Bonner County Gun and Horn Show. I snort-giggled when I read "gun and horn." What came to mind were a bunch of boys riding stick-horses with pop guns and toy bugles. My husband scowled at my giggling and informed me that "horns" referred to antlers, as in hunters. I still held my vision, but was wise enough to also hold my tongue.

While I shopped at Super One and Winter Ridge to replenish the kitchen pantry, he talked ballistics, barrels and bears with the other gun-toting, horn-tooting boys. After a few hours, I called to say that I was on my way to pick him up. My husband had that octave-higher voice of excitement and I realized he was probably let loose in the candy-store too long. He sounded wired on sugar. "Not, yet," he told me before clamping his cell phone shut.

What was I to do in the parking lot with blowing snow and nothing but tailgates to read? So I drove around, in my car noting that there were few cars parked in the full lot. Northern Idahoans drive trucks; 4WD trucks with tires as big as my car and political rhetoric as bold as red paint.

Some tailgates still held to faded concepts involving Clinton, but most favored repealing Obama. The plights of rural western places spoke out in anger with catchy slogans and colorful witticisms. No one was denied speaking out against anyone or anything, and if someone couldn't afford a bumper sticker, they just painted one like drawing a Sharpie tattoo.

Feeling bold among such strong statements I grabbed my camera and recorded (note: to protect the privacy of others I cropped or blocked plate numbers and hid one gun-toting smiling face of a man I did not know). Finally, my husband emerged.

When I told him about recording parking lot politics he read a few and did what every political person does--he debated this slogan, disregarded that one and debunked the myths behind others. Sides. Even in parking lots.

Want to read other silly stories or look at silly photos? Join blog host, Everything Susan at Silly on Sundays.