If you lived next to a Trump-Pence supporter, and they had large TRUMP signs around their house or apartment window, car, had painted their grass with a Trump and Pence photos, how would you feel?
I get a raging hard-on for TRUMP signs, but there aren't any in my neighborhood and it makes me sad.
Well, okay, I'm nearly 50, so I don't get a raging hard-on for much of anything on a frequent basis, but you know what I mean. The TRUMP signs are kitsch. My son and I have a game we play where we see who can count the most TRUMP signs. (Of course 11-year-old children love The Donald. They're all rooting for him.) There are no signs in my neighborhood. Not for Mintzer, not for Hartman, not for Toomey, or McGinty, or Clinton, or Trump, or anyone. I guess it's not really a yardsign sort of neighborhood, but every saturday I take him to Tae Kwon Do blackbelt training near York--he has been into it for just over three years and October 29 he'll have his black belt test. yay!--and the training are held every saturday from 10:30 till 12:30 at the Lower Windsor Township gym, about 30 minutes from my crib. It's in southeastern York County, which is the county just west of here, and apparently deep in TRUMP country. Within a mile or so of that place there are probably a hundred or more TRUMP signs. We always say, "TRUMP, TRUMP, TRUMP, etc." when we see them. There's one block in Lower Windsor Township where just about every house has at least one TRUMP sign on the lawn. Also, there's a chinese restaurant a few blocks from the gym that gets good reviews on line, but it's across the street from a house with about five CSA battle flags hanging from the porch so I'm a little leery about taking my son to eat there, although we both love good chinese food.
I have noticed that about 2 miles from my house is a neighborhood where there are lots of yardsigns. On the corner of Lititz Pike and Valley Road, there's a huge blue TRUMP-PENCE sign, right on the corner, at an ornate, old (200-year-old, maybe) house. We see it every Monday evening when I take my son to piano practice. Sometimes it can be funny. You'll see one house with about six or seven TRUMP signs on the front lawn, and just across the street will be six or seven -->Hillary signs in the neighbor's yard. Like there's a war on. Each week there's one more TRUMP sign on one side and one more -->Hillary sign on the other side. By election day there will be enough to wallpaper the Pentagon. One dude in that same neighborhood even has a TRUMP sign next to a
Bernie sign. That's the guy with a huge pink Jaguar XJ12 and about a hundred pink flamingos in his yard. Real weirdo. He has a bunch of gawdy, full-frontal greco-roman statues as well. His neighbors probably wish he would disappear, but I wish he would have a garage sale some day. I bet he has many interesting objects d'art inside.
On one level, I think it would be cool to live next to a guy who puts up political yardsigns. On another level, I'd think it was tacky and I'd be embarassed by it. If I were on a neighborhood development committee, I'd probably vote against allowing political signs of any sort. On most issues I'm fairly open-minded. I support legalized marijuana, prostitution, and the like. I'm against sex-offender registries and I'm against capital punishment, but I draw the line at political yard signs. Your right to free speech ends the day you buy a house in my development, know what I mean? In other neighborhoods, however, they're cute. It makes for fun driving games. In more normal years, we'd probably play the game where you bet on whether you see more Candidate A or Candidate B signs in a particular neighborhood. Winner buys the loser a beer. (Yeah, I like the reverse rule. Winner buys for loser. Makes it more magnanimous.) This year is weird, though. Clinton is boring. I don't much like her but with her at least I know what to expect. Trump is a real wildcard. The thought of people voting for him is terrifying and exciting at the same time.
I actually have a small collection old campaign paraphernalia. I keep a big CARTER sign on the wall in my basement. It's green with white lettering. I acquired it in the eighth grade, just after carter's loss to reagan in the fall of 1980. Unfortunately it's placed a bit too close to the dartboard and when my son and I play cricket he sometimes gets a little wild with his tosses, so it has become somewhat scuffed. It's strictly a basement curio, however. I cannot imagine putting a political yardsign, or any sort of yardsign, on my lawn. I would like to acquire a TRUMP sign at some point to add to my collection. Probably I'll put it on the other side of the dartboard.
