I want to get some of the ickiness off of me after watching the second Presidential debate between Clinton and Trump a couple of nights ago on Sunday. I'm sure you were watching it. If you weren't, that was a good decision on your part. Even if you didn't see the debate, I know you know what went down--especially with the release of the now infamous video. If you are clueless, here's a good wrap up. I tuned in to see how he could stop the hemorrhaging from his campaign. I was sure that there was no way for him to survive. In fact, I assumed that he would not be able to salvage his campaign.
Funny thing about assumptions--you always end up being surprised. In my case, I was definitely flummoxed as I settled in to watch how a man hounds and stalks a woman on stage and how he manages to get away with it. It was masterfully horrible and yet fascinating to see. It's was like a train wreck that you can't take your eyes off of.
I commend the moderators for having more control of this particular debate. I'm not sure if anyone can control Trump, though. He certainly has a point of view of himself which, truthfully, has been working for him up to now. The question to answer is whether it will continue to work for him enough to get him elected. We'll see. So much stuff and junk to get through, though.
When you think of junk, I'm sure you think about all of the stuff that you have that is of no use to you anymore. You want to get rid of it. And, you want it taken away so that you never see it again. And then, there are people who love junk. One of them is my husband.
He loves to go to junkyards. They are the graveyards of discarded non-functioning cars. You can find fascinating things in these cars. The challenge is to take parts off of them and put them on yours. For instance, what if you needed to replace a rear view mirror on your car? You would need to find a junkyard that has your same model/year car and then bring along tools to take off that part from the car. Of course, you will also need to wear clothes that you don't care about and protective work boots. You can spend hours diving into the guts of these cars and get lots of parts.
The junkyard has its own ecosystem and beauty. If you are lucky, you can find old, barely worn out cars. However, generally speaking, what you will find is lot of unloved, junky cars. People that own old trucks will definitely spend time in junkyards trying to find parts to keep their trucks alive. Other cars that haven't been deemed classic or collectable are easy to find. It's fascinating to see what is there and what happened to the cars to doom them to this fate.
You have to be careful when you are in a junkyard. I've seen people take an engine out of a car using a huge winch for leverage. I watch with a lot of concern because there are no safety provisions in the yard. There's also a junkyard culture in effect. Sometimes, you will find people talking with each other about some jail time that they've done. Whenever I eavesdrop, I marvel at how difficult it was for those individuals to come out of those circumstances. It makes me reflect about how hard it is to rebuild your life once you get out of jail.
You also find people that don't bring the right tools or equipment to do the job. So, in order to be a good person of this junkyard community, you want to bring tools that you don't care about losing because you will share and lose them, on occasion. We all want to help each other out because we all have the same goals--finding that part you don't want to pay full price for.
There is a good junkyard here in Oakland. It's located in East Oakland near the Coliseum--that's where you see baseball and football games being televised. East Oakland is still considered to be pretty junky to many people here in the Bay Area. It will be the last part of the city that gets gentrified--mark my words on that! I used to live in East Oakland and it was ground zero for all of the drug activity in the 70s and the 80s. There's still a good number of gangs left--this is their part of the city. They won't leave unless they are forced to or when things get better for everyone.
People go to a junkyard with a specific purpose in mind--to get cheap, usable parts. Whatever you take out from a car, you have to pay for when you exit. This is a big industry and there are junkyard chains all across the country. There's even an app for finding autos in junkyards. Unfortunately you have to pay for everything you take--even the screws and emblems. People get tired of being "nickled and dimed", so it is not unusual to find petty thievery going on. If you can slip it into your sock, you will. Or, maybe, you can stuff it into a hidden pocket. I call this retail justice.
You can only get so many parts from a car before it meets its fate. It is eventually moved and put into a pile. The cars are smashed down and they are stacked up. At some point, a forklift will come along and move them over to a crushing machine. The cars are crushed and then they are transported to another facility that will probably try to recycle the material.
Too bad we can't remove the good parts we like from politicians just like we do with parts from a junkyard.
Imagine a world of smashed politicians...