Several odd moments prior to going to the post office

Suddenly it's very windy. Like Chicago windy. Real nail-down-the-small-animals-on-the-porch kind of wind. So I would presume that a front is moving through. Perhaps I should be flying a kite though as child I was never really into such matters. Even back then, the idea of standing in some wide open space watching some oddly shaped object dangle in the wind seemed rather tedious. Unless it was an effigy of some sort, of course. That was always good fun.

Or would have been had I ever had the privilege of witnessing any fervent political/social displays. Not surprisingly my fair burg doesn't have too much drama of that nature. I think former Georgia governor Lester Maddox came through here at some point on his way to somewhere, but that was simply a matter of routing. It had nothing to do with the need for him to throw his ax handle around though I'm sure he would have been up for it as well. Lester did love to whop things back then. It was a different time, I suppose. When "problems" could be "solved" with whopping sticks, fire hoses and attack dogs, giving the rural south an even worse name than its supposed more refined capitals.

My Dad saw Maddox years later in a McDonald's. No words were exchanged or any knowing nods given. Nor was there any incident. Like the air, Maddox simply was there and then he wasn't. Nevertheless, I occasionally amuse myself with the idea of him pitching a fit to the cashier because his Big Mac was not up to par, jumping up and down, getting more red-faced by the second. "Don't you know who I am? I used to beat you people back in my day. Now give my grands some gift certificates 'fore I goes and gets my ax handle upside you head and whatnot."

Because I tend to sweat the small details, I suppose it's only fitting that I would find such minutiae equally interesting. An interest, I suspect, that will reach no farther than from my head to my toes. Still, it must warm that old racist's skeletal remains to know that one day he would be the subject of, possibly, the most obtuse, arcane and all around random post in the history of the world and universe. Let it not be said that even in death Lester Maddox is not useful for something.