Travels With Tom <$BlogRSDUrl$>

Travels With Tom

Welcome to my travel web log. For the last ten years, I’ve gotten in my car every August and driven all over South Dakota – no schedule and no staff. My "unscheduled driving tour" is always one of the highlights of the year for me. I find it an invaluable tool for keeping in touch with needs and concerns of South Dakotans. Every year I meet the most fascinating people, have the most amazing experiences, and end up with great stories to tell.

Wednesday, August 06, 2003

Driving up to Mount Rushmore, I saw a lonely caravan of people along the road. I stopped my Cadillac Escalade to see what their problems were. These people were wearing nothing but rags and pushing carts filled with bodies. A dirty man who looked like he hasn't been into one of South Dakota's fine underfunded clinics was at the front of the convoy. The cart master saw me and yelled, "Bring out your dead! Bring out your dead!"

A grey-haired man who looked even dirtier than the first came up to us with a bundle flopped over his shoulder. At first, it looked like an old rug the local Native Americans used to bury their dead with, but then I noticed the bundle squirming. If the person wasn't dead, it looked like he soon would be. The grey-haired man yelled, "Here's one." A voice from the "dead" person replied, "I'm not dead!."

"What?" asked the Cart Master.

"Nothing. Here's your ninepence," replied the grey-haired man. I wondered what poor straights the grey-haired man was in that he didn't have any U.S. currency.

The conversation then went like this:

Dead Person:
I'm not dead!

Cart Master:
'Ere. He says he's not dead!

Grey-Haired Man:
Yes, he is.

Dead Person:
I'm not!

Cart Master:
He isn't?

Grey-Haired Man:
Well, he will be soon. He's very ill.

Dead Person:
I'm getting better!

Grey-Haired Man:
No, you're not. You'll be stone dead in a moment.

Cart Master:
Oh, I can't take him like that. It's against regulations.

Dead Person:
I don't want to go on the cart!

Grey-Haired Man:
Oh, don't be such a baby.

Cart Master:
I can't take him.

Dead Person:
I feel fine!

Grey-Haired Man:
Well, do us a favour.

Cart Master:
I can't.

Grey-Haired Man:
Well, can you hang around a couple of minutes? He won't be long.

Cart Master:
No, I've got to go to the Robinsons'. They've lost nine today.

Grey-Haired Man:
Well, when's your next round?

Cart Master:
Thursday.

Dead Person:
I think I'll go for a walk.

Grey-Haired Man:
You're not fooling anyone, you know. Look. Isn't there something you can do?

The cart master then smacked the "dead" person on the head while he was singing, "I feel happy. I feel happy."

"Ah, thanks very much," said the grey-haired man.

"Not at all. See you on Thursday," said the Cart Master.

It's such a shame to live in a country where families sell their dead because they don't have the health insurance to keep them alive. It's all because of the policies of President Bush and his heartless Republicans. His "compassionate conservatism" extends to the brutalized people of Iraq, but what of the people in his own country? It's gotten so bad, it's beginning to look like a scene from a movie.
I seem to be lost in a vast farm in southeast South Dakota. Send a rescue party!

08/03/2003 - 08/10/2003  


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