John_Schwada's Blog

What’s John McCain smoking? Let’s give everyone a federal gas-tax holiday this summer? What’s that all about?

What we need is a presidential candidate driving a moped, to and from the White House, up and down Pennsylvania Avenue. A president who rides a bike, walks. A presidential candidate who waters his or her own lawn, cleans up after their kids, takes out the trash (that would include, big boy, separating the banana peels from the beer bottles ) spends less time hobnobbing with hedge fund campaign contributors and oil industry executives…

I’m doing the math on how to pick a candidate for president. It’s called Schwada algebra. The first formula is this: 4 minus 3 = 1. Four is the number of people who will be hot-bedding in our house this summer: my wife, myself (if I’m lucky after writing this blog) and two strapping boys – each capable of knocking off a small steer for dinner each evening (both wrestling it to the ground and eating it). Each of them, hopefully, will be employed this summer and out of the house for at least ten hours a day.

Okay, now three is the number of cars in the house. So we got this deficit of one car.

The consensus among the voters in my household is that I should buy a 4th car.

Good luck! I’m getting a Vespa – you know one of those little motor scooters so popular with Euro-bohemian-wanna-be’s. No more large hunks of metal in my driveway.

Every time I look at my rather modest Passat VW 2005 (is this ruining your image of high-flying TV newscasters racing around in little Porsches and do you think I really give a damn?) and I see large numbers of half-naked third-world men (don’t get any ideas!) clambering around in a mining pit digging steel out of the earth with their bare-hands, breaking their fingernails in the effort….(sorry that last clause was meant to be sarcastic). Anyway, the whole scene is like something out of Pieter Breughels (the Elder of course), Hieronymus Bosch or a photo by Sebastio Salgado Jr. (see below - Breughels painting The Fall of the Rebel Angels).
Anyway, the whole damned image is very exotic and interesting but morally depressing. It makes you want to start eating your own flesh.

So it’s a Vespa for me. My wife says I’m crazy. She has evidence too, and it’s not Joe McCarthy-Swiss cheese evidence. It’s Irrefutable. Perry Mason couldn’t bust her case. The last time I road a two-wheeled vehicle was on an island off the Washington coast. That was like two years ago. Within minutes, I was pinned under this defiant little machine, looking sheepish and sullen. The time before that was on Jimmy Fields’ Yamaha. Again the outcome lacked grace and finesse. But it made up for these missing ingredients with hilarity. Like how funny is it to crash-land in your girl-friend’s front-yard when you’re trying to convince her mom you’re a safe 16-year-old driver?

Unfortunately, I shared this mishap misadventure story with my wife, and women, as you know, are like elephants - they never forget.

But I’m ready for the naysayers. Ready to take a few lessons on two-wheeled driving. Ready to take a DMV test to get the M2 license, get another insurance policy, a helmet…maybe a suit made of bubble wrap.

Now all I need are presidential candidates who’ll get out of their Lincoln Towncars, their Cadillac Escalades, stop talking about gas-tax holidays and start preaching two-wheelers, self-denial, self-reliance…conservation? Who'll get my family off my back - make my Vespa decision look politically-inspired not hare-brained. Am I crazy?