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Thu 4 Nov, 2004 06:40 pm
Edit: Moderator: Moved from Spirituality & Religion to Politics
thanks, I owe ya one.
TWO DELAWARE INVENTED TRADITIONS THAT CELEBRATE OUR SPECIES
-PUNKIN CHUNKIN-The Saturday after Halloween , People of all kinds, get together in a field in Lewes Delaware and fire pumpkins into space. All sorts of WMDs are employed , from cucurbit trebouchets, to high powered Pneumo-cannons which enable a simple jack-o-lantern to achieve escape velocity.Of course lots of rock music, hillbilly music, alcohol, and recreational chemicals are employed to stoke the festivities. EMinently civilized. now if we could launch a capsule full of that shitty candy corn
RETURN DAY_The tuesday following every election dayfor every office in the state(from US senators down to the governor and county offices) The losers and winners gather to parade down main street in Georgetown, Sussex County. horse drawn carriages containing all the contenders , parade in a good natured celebration of "burying the ax" Again, as its been told me, much alcohol and seafood is involved.
Ya think that those of us whove lived in delaware can teach america a different take on political results?
The lesson from punkin chunkin is that , ...well...there probably is some important thing that can be learned from punkin chunkin. It just escapes me at the moment
the lesson from Return Day is that, no matter how t bitter the campaign, the contestants will be seen together on the streets-face to face, sitting on the same wagon and they will begin to learn that really, nothing substantial changes. the ultraconservative defeated gubernatorial candidate is helping the left wing nut governor to make crab cakes for everybody who can walk up to the cook wagon
Should I shut up?
Punkin' Chunkin' teaches hot shot adolescents that "You build it and it may not work."
Ruturn Day sends the same message.
No silly, return day is the best way to begin or end a politicaal career, with a hangover.
Ya ever been to either?
farmerman--
Of course not. You know my gifts are theory, speculation and arrogance.
I've been to Returns Day. It was 1984 and I had worked on the successful Biden Senate campaign (I was in Law School there). It's a fun party, a parade-y kind of thing.
It works in Delaware because the state is so tiny. A lot of folks are related to one another (no, not incestuously, so far as I know
) and so Politics is a family affair. And the families tend to bury the hatchet once the races are over.
Whaddaya mean Delaware is TINY!!!. Its as big as it needs to be to have 2 senators and all that other **** that states get.
Wow, jes, You were in the days of Bidens coming to national prominance. He is now probably one of the most respected DEM senators . I was still in grad school when his family was wiped out in that awful car crash. Ive met him numerous times and am impressed each time with his grasp of so many issues.
Whattya think?
He's a very smart man. He's also a pretty funny guy, with a ready smile. I was around when his daughter was about 4 and Beau and Hunt were in High School. Ashley (his daughter from his second marriage, to a woman named Jill) was about the same age that his first daughter was when she died.
I remember he kissed me on the cheek at his victory party. :-D Here's a quickie bio on him:
http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=B000444
By the by, several high schools here in the Poconos compete in Punkin' Chunkin' every year--the Delaware influence, no doubt.
The hills n hollers of the Poconos make it a problem to achieve maximum trajectory. In Delaware , we have an ocean of some size nearby that, should a punkin go off course down range, they can destruct it safely over water with no seed mess all over the neighborhood. For safety they notify the Dover Air Force Base to clear all C-5A traffic around thhe punkin firing range. ITS AWESOME.Once again, this year, we expect the Intergalactic Punkin Modulator to be the gun to beat.
I think the Punkin' Chunkin' aftermath is clean up by local wildlife. I know the high school teams learn a great deal about practical engineering.
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