Campaign Season in Durango -- and Elsewhere

For the record, Michelle Obama's plane flew right over our house on her way out of town.  I waved.  The plane didn't wiggle its wings in reply, but hey, if they did it for me, they'd have to do it for everyone.  Her speech was a success, if you can measure those things.  The gym sold out -- well, gave out all the tickets and people waited in line for hours to go through security.  Dan had to pull over for her motorcade as she left town.  The motorcade took the county roads to the airport, which was kind to the drivers on the highway and conjured up wonderful images of the eight or nine vehicle parade winding along County Road 234 with its doglegs and rural habitat.  We listened to the speech on my iPhone, thanks to the Durango Herald, which streamed it live via their website.  At one point during the speech, our local NPR affiliate misquoted Michelle in a tweet posted on Facebook, saying that PBO has created 5.2 billion jobs since taking office.   One person commented that that would have provided jobs for the entire world...

Tonight is the vice-presidential debate.  We'll be DVRing it while we attend Life Long Learning, which, this week, is presenting a panel discussion on the state of public education in America.

In 1992, we sailed our boat south during campaign season.  The plan was to cruise Chesapeake Bay in company with two other boats, owned and crewed by close friends.  We left Annapolis on the morning of the vice-presidential debate.  We sailed to St. Michael's, MD, a charming town devoted to the sea, the blue crab and Old Bay Seasoning.  That evening, in a three-boat raft-up, we enjoyed cocktails under a setting sun, Dan's Paella and the debate, which we were able to pull in on our tiny TV, which we mostly used for playing VHS tapes.  (It was 1992, remember?)  That evening became famous for the JFK anti-analogy of Lloyd Benston, which NPR has been recycling like mad the last two days.  The evening became famous for our little group for other reasons.   In the wee hours of morn, our 3-boat raft-up dragged a full half-mile across the broad cove before someone awoke and made everyone else aware of our plight!  We set an additional anchor in the dark and got back to sleep.  In our defense, we had done what we thought was a pretty good job of anchoring our fleet in the first place, but events proved otherwise!  Lucky for us, the bottom was smooth and gradual and had Dick not woken up, we more than likely would have reset by virtue of the upwardly sloping bottom and gradually lengthening scope and no one would have been the wiser.  Well, the view was entirely different come morning.

Having written the paragraph above and reread it, I realize that I've got my debates confused.  1992 was the debate with Al Gore, Dan Quayle and Ross Perot's running mate, Vice-Admiral James Stockdale.  Okay, it's an understandable mistake.  That debate was just as embarrassing, if not more so,  as the Benston-Quayle debacle of four years earlier.  My, how time does fly!  Mea culpa.

In any case, I hope that tonight's moderator understands the definition of the word "debate" and that the two combatants will demonstrate intelligence and a reasonable grasp of the facts.