Salute

Last night, as I was stopped at a traffic light on Ventura Blvd., an older Mercedes pulled up in the lane next to me. As I looked over, the 20-something driver gave me the 1-finger salute. I was only about 1/4 mile from home at the time, and the ride had been totally uneventful up to that point, so I was certain that it wasn't because of some previous driver error or indiscretion on my part. Might have been just some random event, but chances are it was a reaction to a bumper sticker on my car.

Was it the "Impeach Bush 2006" or the "Support Our Troops: Bring Them Home" or the "Dissent is Patriotic"? Perhaps the "Send the Bush Twins to Iraq"..... I know for a fact that that one frequently gets me a big thumbs up when on the road.

Based on this best guess, I reacted in the way that I normally do when I'm confronted politically by a Yahoo at one of my activist events: I smiled and waved. If that made him feel just a little bit foolish, then my day was complete.

As we drove away I began to wonder why this fine, strapping, brave young fellow was in fashionable Sherman Oaks, where life is good and reasonably safe, and not in Iraq with all those other brave men and women. The same for his 20-something lady friend in the passenger seat. (Did I mention before that this model citizen and patriot was also talking on his cell phone during this sequence?)

He must have been home on leave for the holidays. Yeah, that's what it must have been.