Observations from a Van

Today I took a 26 mile journey to get a medical checkup and a blood test required by my insurance company.  For now, I am in disgustingly good health.  I say disgusting because then I don't get to go out at all since I have no free transportation to take me around to see anything other than the road to various doctor's offices.  I checked and Medicare just will not pay Uber or any other service to go sight-seeing. So this day was a real treat for me.  I got to see both sides of the road as well as a new part of the clinic I visit.  My doctor has moved to a new part of the building that also houses the Pediatrics section.  Strangely enough my primary care physician specializes in Pediatrics and Geriatrics.  She gets us coming and going. I tell her she should add Dermatology so she would have patients that never get well but don't have emergencies so they could be scheduled at her convenience and would never call in the middle of the night.  I have a lot of redneck friends that can't understand why my doctor for the last 13 years is a black female.  She was the best qualified doctor in a pool I had to choose from.  I have never been disappointed in her care.  Sometimes I wish she was a Muslim too so I could really piss off my idiot acquaintances.
  What I saw was not a city or country in decline; exactly the opposite.  New building  everywhere from stand alone shops or food outlets to new strip centers, each complete with a new nail salon.  I think the presence of a nail salon is indicative of the wealth of an area.  When people have enough extra money to pay someone to perform a simple task like taking care of their fingernails, the economy is just fine.  In California, there is a service to comb lice out of one's hair if they get them. Maybe off public toilet seats, lice not crabs.  They draw the line at pubic hair. All this just short of a butt wiping service with people cruising around in cars waiting for a cell phone call to converge on a calling address.  First one there like a wrecker service at an accident gets the job.
   Speaking again of cell phones; when I sat for some minutes, I saw babies using their mother's I-Phone as a pacifier or teething tool.  Toddlers with hand held video games, being introduced early
to a fantasy world.  If their parents happen to be conservative republicans, they are getting a running start on a lifetime of living in a fantasy world.  I hope not.  For the most part, the mothers seemed young and likely not having been exposed to Saint Ronald Reagan.  In fact, they looked like Bernie Sanders material.  The very first money I get extra will go to a jacket or t-shirt or some article that visually will identify me as a Bernie Sanders supporter.  Then I won't seem like some fanatical Witness or Mormon or wing-nut Evangelist when I give them some information about the importance of voting.  If they vote, they have a choice.  If they stay home, they are automatically voting for some nut like Donald Trump.  Vamonos y votar por Bernie Sanders.