I drove over to Charlie’s Truck Stop this past week to get some gas for my car and to catch up on the latest news. Jake did not come bounding out as usual when I parked in front of the pumps and I decided I would have to put the gas in for myself. I don’t mind filling the tank, but it’s nice to have Jake do it for you. Just as I was reaching toward the pump, Jake came out and asked if I needed some gas. He said he had been busy with a customer when I pulled up. I told him to fill ‘er up and Jake grinned like he always does. While Jake was putting gas in the tank, he commented on the weather and I agreed we have been having some mighty nice late Spring temperature. It is sure to get hotter as the days wear on. Jake finished with the gas and I followed him into the store. I gave him money for the gas and told him I was going to look around for a few more things I might need.

The Reverend Johnson was sitting over by the wood heater where the old guys around Soagie gather to talk over world events and just about anything else that comes into their heads. Bob Havershold was with him as was Hermann Spencer. There was no fire in the stove, of course, but the stove is where these fellas like to gather about and pass the time of day. I walked over and asked how things were going and Bob said it was probably going to be a long Summer and he and his wife were going to get very tired of hearing West Side Story around the house. It seems Bob’s daughter, Cheriee, has been to auditions at the community theatre and she has her heart set on getting a big part in the production. Bob doesn’t know yet how she did, but he expects she will get a part of some kind, what with there being so many to fill. Bob thought Cheriee might lose her enthusiasm for performing on stage over time, but the child seems to have a bad case of stage fever and it shows no sign of going away. All complaining aside, Bob admits he is mostly proud of the child. He has never seen her so interested in anything before this. I have done a little backstage work in the theatre myself in years past when I had more time to spare, and I enjoyed it quite a bit. I can easily understand how a person can get bitten by the bug.

We all looked up to see Willard Smith come in through the front door. Willard walked over to the soft drink machine and put four quarters into the slot and lifted the lid. Jake still has the old type of machine that is like a big chest with a lid on top. When you lift the lid you see rows of soft drinks all lined up. Put the money in and you can pull your drink of choice down the row to a metal gate that allows you to lift the plastic bottle out. Willard came over twisting the top off the drink and taking a big mouthful. He sat the drink on the stove and complained prices on everything from soft drinks to gas were going out the roof. Nobody was of a mind to disagree with him. Willard had just come in from the factory job he holds in Savannah and he had been listening to the news on the radio in his car. He was all put out with the angle the news jockey was coming from with the war in Iraq. Willard is our professional Republican and Bush Administration supporter and he stands four square behind the administration policy in Iraq. Willard thinks the news media is undermining the war effort with the constant negative reporting. It is a good thing for most of the newscasters this is the United States where anyone can express most any opinion they like, else those guys would be in jail for treason.

The Reverend let Willard wind down and didn’t say anything, but Willard noticed the expression on the Reverend’s face and asked him how he felt about the war in Iraq. The Reverend’s brother had not been wholehearted in favor of the invasion, but he had held that winning out against the terrorists was important. Mister Johnson had believed the war had come down to a matter of Western Civilization against fanatics who wanted to drag the world back in time some five hundred years. The Reverend cleared his throat and said he did not always agree with his brother on everything. He has mixed feelings about the war. On the one hand, the Reverend has no sympathy for the terrorists. He thinks they are, at heart, cold blooded fanatical murderers pure and simple. On the other hand, he was never in favor of invading Iraq in the first place. He agrees with most everyone that Saddam Hussein was a bad man, but the invasion looked to the Reverend more an issue of oil than about getting rid of a dictatorial tyrant. The Reverend keeps remembering the first soldier killed in the invasion was killed protecting an Iraqi oil field, not liberating women and children from a tyrant.

The Reverend is not totally opposed to administration policy. He does not believe the President is an underhanded crook. For his part, the Reverend accepts the President at face value as an good man doing what he believes is best for the country, but the Reverend has an honest difference of opinion what is good for the United States. The Reverend thinks George W. Bush believes unobstructed access to oil supplies is important to the continued progress of this country and he believes whatever is required to assure continued access is in the national interest. The Reverend does not know what is in the President’s head, but it is looking more and more as though the Bush Administration came to Washington with the intention of taking out Saddam Hussein and would have used any excuse at hand for achieving that end. If there had never been a Nine-Eleven attack, the Administration would have manufactured another excuse for the invasion. The American people don’t like to be lied to and, while the President’s motives may have been pure and one can insist he was not technically lying, it appears he certainly stretched the truth beyond all recognition. Like a growing number of American citizens, the Reverend believes the problems Iraq has are problems Iraqis needs to fix for themselves. If the Iraqis want democracy, it is the Iraqis who should achieve that democracy. Democracy is not something you can pass out like party favors. Democracy is borne of the desires of the people for whom that democracy is intended. Democracy imposed from without is just another form of tyranny.

END