Mattes's Musings by KC2GIK

 Quote from the American President: Lewis lecturing President  Shepard on leadership, "People want leadership Mr. President and in the absence of genuine leadership they will listen to anyone who stands up to the microphone. They want leadership. They'll so thirsty for it they'll crawl through the dessert  towards a  and when they discover there's no water they'll drink the sand"  President Shepard replied, "People don't drink the sand because they're thirsty. They drink the sand because they do n't know the difference" The Republicans got their asses handed to them in the mid-terms last night. From Texas to Michigan the blue wave would put the best breaks in Hawaii and California to shame. I'm not surprised about the wave, it's the type of candidates that won that terrifies me. Socialists won in Maine, Michigan and even once deep red Te xas.   Which was a bit of a shock to me!! Everybody knows the combination of inflation, gas pr...

;   There was an added bonus   to attending the ALPCA Convention in Fort Wayne Indiana over the summer. The  Union Pacific Big Boy 4104 was doing a tour of the country and one of the stops was in Fort Wayne during the convention!!  Quite a few of us license plate collectors are also into trains.  The bad news was the Big Boy's even in Fort Wayne was closed to the public/. After walking a few blocks we found a parking lot by the tracks, problem being the tracks were elevated.  There were a few people in the parking lot Still I g ot some pretty decent shots with the iPhone!  I was a bit disappointed that I didn't actually hear a lot on the scanner, but I learned afterwards, the crew of the big boy don't talk too much! Still an historic day indeed!!!

Besides visiting some cool museums and attending two baseball games  with Clark & Dean on our  way out to the ALPCA Convention in  Ft Wayne, I managed to tack on a few more counties in Michigan, Ohio and of course Indiana. Since Dean was riding shotgun, it was hard keeping track but I think I did a pretty decent job! 7/12/26-7/18/26 Wasentaw CO,MI Monroe CO,MI Ottawa CO,MI —-- ——————— Lapeer CO ,OH   Wood Co, OH Sandusky Co,OH Erie Co,OH Henry Co. OH Williams Co,OH Paulding Co,OH Defiance Co,OH Lucas Co,OH ________________ DeKalb Co,IN Allen Co,IN Henry Co,IN Wayne Co, IN Grant County ,IN Huntington C o, IN

  . When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.  The reaction to America's 250th Birthday is mixed. People are celebrating in some circles while others are claiming the current political climate is ripe for the fall of democracy. I will attempt to  not be as dramatic, even though I am enthusiastic about our country, imperfections included. It would be a waste a time and effort to go through 250 years of  American history through my eyes, a forty-eight year old from NJ with CP. However it absolutely blows my mind that Thomas Jefferson was just thirty-five when he wrote the   Declaration of Independence . He...

  It has been a whirlwind few weeks. One  father's friends from high school passed away earlier and we made an expected trip down to Murrells Inlet for the celebration of life. They have kept in touch over the years. Charlie moved around a lot during his eighty plus year his roots remained n Allendale, NJ! He and his wife Bev were a fixture a t DeeDee and Anth ony's Fourth of July Parties. I   know their kids,John and Annie.Charlie also had to sons from a previous marriage and it was recently discovered he has another daughter. Charlie was the CEO of several companies, like Floor Shine shoes and Munsingwear, a golf clothing company.  The family moved around a lot from  Allendale,NJ to  Connecticut to Minnesota before finally  settling in Murrells Inlet SC, founding the Dead Dog Saloon, a fixture on the Murrells Inlet Marshwalk, he later built the Claw House next door. Ironically Charlie and Bev brought a second house in Cape May which meant I spen...

90% of the time we go down to Murrells Inlet, we travel by car. That means taking first the Cape May-Lewes Ferry across the Delaware Bay. As we were approaching Lewes, I quickly noticed old blue "Welcome to Lewes, Delaware" was replaced by this new white sign with the ferry logo on the  upper right hand corner. I knew this was my only chance until December to shoot it.. My dad likes to be one of the first cars on and off the ferry, so this was an added bonus!! It's one of the advantages of being in the shotgun seat!!!!!

     It's almost been three years since I decided to abandon my   paid web host  and moved my  website over to Blogger. I realized I hadn't really explored the "pages " feature that  creates single pages you can link to like regular pages on a website. At first I was hesitant because I wanted to keep my HTML coding skills up to par, but I am just happy to get it back !!  I will continue to write about the ALPCA Conventions on here but have an index of all license plate writing on there. .I also plan to cross-post  both blogs. I also have links to the license plate collectors' eBay handles and the "What We Collect" pages from my old site!! The link is http://plates.justinmattes.com