"The Miracle of Deliverance."

I would volunteer to drive a car full of ballots from Oregon to Washington, D.C., and dump them in the Oval Office if that were possible, and I bet there is someone in every zip code of the United States who would do the same.  

Fill that office with the words of the citizens that we do not want a dictator to run our country. Period.

Think of it:  trucks, armored vehicles, and private cars making a run to Washington. There would be so many, highway patrol, Homeland Security, whoever has jurisdiction, wouldn’t know who carried ballots and who didn’t. Maybe Amazon Prime could do it.

This fantasy came to me the other night when I went to bed fearing we would not have a fair and honest mid-term election. I saw that the President is taking whatever steps he can to ensure that as many voters who would vote against him are stymied. Of course, there are other means at their disposal.

I thought of all the escaped slaves who saved other slaves. They didn’t wait for permission.

We No-King-Marchers have our little marches, and what happens? The more the light shines, the more the harbingers of evil have their hissy fits and clamp down on whatever freedoms they can get their hands on.

We, the people, take to the streets in our "No King" marches, some 9 million strong, to protest the happenings coming out of Washington, D.C. But he’s still there.

We try to obey the laws, to be courteous, to speak our piece, only to see it trampled. We are playing by two separate sets of rules.

Remember the WWII Dunkirk, France rescue? Oh, you don’t remember? Neither do I, but I read about it, in a novel, can you believe, how the Germans cut off and surrounded 338,000 soldiers, forcing the British, French, Dutch, and Allies into a narrow corridor of sea in Dunkirk. There they were, stuck, either to perish or to be captured.

The harbor was too shallow for the big ships to navigate it. Winston Churchill thought they could evacuate maybe 20,000 of the men.

The British civilians rallied.

People who owned pleasure crafts, dinghies, fishing boats, lifeboats, and yachts navigated the harbor back and forth to pick up soldiers who were standing in cold shoulder-high water waiting to be rescued. Those civilian pilots drove from May 27, 1940, to June 4, 1940, through the harbor of Dunkirk stopping only for petrol, until all 338,000 men were delivered to the big ships.

 

 

 

 

This rescue was called “The Miracle of Deliverance.” or "The Little Boats." 

It was not a military victory, but it was a human one.

 

 

 

  

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.”—Margaret Mead

A Fabulous Peck on the Cheek, Next Week a Kick in the Pants

 This was when the house was arriving-

I got such a kick out of an event that happened this week, well, two of them. I’m of the sort who, when I see or taste something stupendous, I have to run out and tell someone. You know, when we taste something really superb, we offer a bite to our spouse or friend, and say, “Oh, this is so good, here, try this.” The same works, though, if we taste something awful, “Augh, this is terrible, here taste this.”

Okay, first off, this is about moving our tiny house:

One reason I thought this driver was so superb was that I used to drive a pickup truck pulling a horse trailer, and whenever I needed to back it up, I broke out in a sweat. So, when the moving fellow said he would back his truck into our gravel driveway that runs alongside our regular drive and back to where the tiny house is parked under an RV- high roof, I said, “No way you can back into there.”

He said he could do it, and he did. He had changed his mind about using the Mule—a remote-controlled small tractor, and decided to use the truck instead.

Amazing. With a truck a half a block long, the cab reaching into the branches of our Magnolia tree alongside the driveway, carrying the Mule in a space behind the cab, and pulling a trailer longer than our house, he made it back to within inches of the tiny house.

The creative-thinking driver, with his magic trailer and remote-control device, lowered the back of the trailer to the ground, much like the bucket on a Bobcat, except it was 12 feet wide. He scooched the trailer loading ramp under the 4 x 4’s that supported the house, lifted, scooted, lifted, scooted until suddenly wheels appeared from beneath the trailer like landing gear descending from beneath an airplane, and settled in under the house.  With his remote control, the operator moved the entire house sideways to within an inch of the fence on one side and an inch to a tree limb on the other. He even cut a limb with his chainsaw and kept adjusting the house to line it up perfectly with the narrow driveway.  

A tight fit--top roof be gone.

When the house was completely off the ground and onto that trailer, he got in the truck and drove it out.

We still have the tiny house.

It’s parked in our graveled driveway.

We can show it for sale there and have it moved again when we get a a buyer. That tiny house is no longer trapped under that RV high overhead. We had to remove its roof to make space to lift the house, because dragging it out was dangerous.  

Want to buy a tiny house?

 

Don’t put your mother-in-law in it, unless she is very agile, for the bed, a full, brand new mattress is on rollers and slides easily under the raised kitchen floor. That arrangement is enormously better than the cramped loft, the only thing that was in the bare-boards house when we bought it. (Daughter Dear thought a tiny house would be a contribution to inexpensive housing. And it was her art project.)

She got rid of that loft right away—too claustrophobic. Now the building is insulated, beautifully plastered, and has a large tiled shower and a complete bathroom.

One of the contractors told us we could rent it for about $800 a month. Rent it out on Airbnb it,or live in it. Daughter Dear doesn’t have time to work on it anymore, and rather than have a carpenter come in and finish it, she figured that the owners could have a discount to purchase it if they complete it. That way they can put their own stamp on it.)

All the component parts are included except for a kitchen counter, and some elbow grease —you choose the counter. Being a tile aficionado, my daughter tiled the entire wall, in light brick above the kitchen cabinets. The bamboo flooring is provided, half in the bathroom is complete. There is slate tile for the kitchen. The sink, refrigerator, stove, faucets, lights, room heater, hot water heater, and a new mattress are provided.  The wiring was professionally installed. Water can be provided from a faucet. Toilet and drains need to be plumbed beneath the house. With an extension cord, a garden hose, and a composting toilet, it could be self- sufficient, provided you could dispose of gray water. You know, like in that back 40.

Door tile detail. 

 And now, the second magnificent find this week: It’s a love story as told to me a long time ago by a member of my family.

 

One thing about being a writer is that you find pages you wrote years ago and forgot about them, so when you find them, it’s a surprise. I found this old story, tucked away in the garage. It was the inside pages to a Newsletter I wrote ages ago.

My family member who is no longer with us, said it was about her sister.

When the sister was 28 years old and had just left a romantic relationship, she decided she knew there was one thing she wanted. That was a child.

So, when an old boyfriend rolled into town, she took advantage of the situation, struck up another rendezvous, became pregnant, and was prepared to be a single mother.

The baby was born at 28 weeks of gestation, had problems for a time, but survived, grew, and was healthy.

Sister rented an apartment (Where? I don’t know, this sounds like New York). The apartment was on the third floor, a walk-up. The owners, a Jewish couple, lived on the first floor, the second was rented, and the sister had the third.

The owners agreed to care for the baby while sister worked, and they decided they had another task. That was finding a husband for sister.

When the second-floor tenant left, leaving the apartment available, the owners held out on renting it until they had the perfect tenant. That left the apartment vacant for quite some time. The sister thought it just didn’t rent.

But then it did. To a nice single man.

One day, after her sister picked up her baby from the owners on the first floor, she walked from the second to the third. The man saw her upstairs, fumbling with her keys as she tried to get into her apartment while holding the baby. She had just had her wisdom tooth extracted and was swollen up like a cantaloupe. On top of that, she had Bell’s Palsy, which causes one side of the face to droop. (Some people recover from this, some don’t.)

The man came up behind her and said, “You look awful. Let me hold the baby for you so you can get some rest.”

They fell in love and got married.

The Jewish couple paid for the wedding.