(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Father's Day and an upside down flag story from back in the day [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2024-06-09 In the spring of 1970 my father, Norman, placed the winning bid of $565, on a 1965 International Harvester (IH) Travelall at an auction in Spokane, Washington. He bought it for me as a high school graduation present. It was an amazing gift; the Travelall, while not a popular cultural icon as the VW bus, was a rugged workhorse of a truck, an SUV before the term existed. (See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Travelall .) I owned it until Norm passed in 1995. I put another 100,000 miles on it, crossing the country many times, the adventures were too numerous to remember. But I have recently been reminded of one, perhaps my second memory of the adventures of truck ownership: the first time I had to leave the truck when it ran out of gas. It was the summer of 1970, I had only had the truck a few weeks. I had put a small flag decal, upside-down, on the driver’s side passenger window. I intended it to convey that I thought the country was in extreme distress. Norm did not approve, although his politics were radical, standing out in the conservative rural Eastern Washington State community in which we lived. He was not confrontational, definitely not in a public display. But he did not object either, it was my truck to do with as I wished. While he understood my feelings, he had lived through worse in his life. One Saturday I took the truck up in the hills north of Ellensburg for a kegger, I don’t remember a beer keg, or very much else about the party; I don’t think it was well attended. On the way home I first discovered that the gas gauge needle did not go completely to E before the truck ran out of gas. I pulled off the side of the road, leaving the truck’s drivers side facing the road. Although we were in a remote part of the valley, there were other cars returning to town; it was not a problem to get a ride home. There were no houses on the road we were on, I didn’t think anything would happen to the truck overnight. Norm took me out the next morning with a gas can. The truck looked just as I had left it, but after putting gas in the tank it still didn’t start. We opened the hood and immediately saw that the spark plug wires were gone. We found the wires in the nearby brush, but there was no way to reconnect the plug wires in the proper order without knowing the timing of the engine cycle and the firing order of the engine. We somehow towed the truck home, and Norm, without a word of blame, taught me how to determine when a piston was at Top Dead Center (TDC) in the fire stoke of the cycle (hint: both valves closed before, during, and after TDC). But the problem was that TDC for the number 1 cylinder did not match the timing marks on the crankshaft pulley. Norm then found a decal on the engine with the firing order, and that the engine was timed to the number 8 cylinder. (IH made its own path.) When we got all the wires properly hooked up, we were dismayed to find the engine still would not start. Norm told me to check the fuel filter, in a small glass bowl under the truck. When I was in position to see it, I could see that it was filled with dirt. I took it apart, cleaned it out, and replaced the filter, but as soon as the engine turned over it filled up again. Obviously a significant amount of dirt had been dumped in the tank; locking gas caps were not a thing back then. Norm suggested I take out the 20 gallon steel fuel tank and have it cleaned. That must have taken a week, and I learned all about the connections to the fuel tank, and how it was secured to the truck frame. It was clear to everyone that my upside-down flag decal was the provocation for this vandalism. It was also clear that if I made such a public statement, I needed to deal with the reactions. I needed to sort it out myself, the truck was not going to the shop to be fixed. Within a year I was serving a two year sentence in a federal prison as a result of my informing the draft board that I would not be registering under the Selective Service Act. In spite of this felony conviction the Bars of Washington State and New York State judged me morally fit to practice law. A key factor for both bar associations was that I stood up and took responsibility for my actions: I wrote the draft board and informed them of my decision to refuse to register. My how the times have changed. As a citizen, as a lawyer, and as a member of the Bar of the Supreme Court of the United States, I am dismayed and embarrassed that members of the Supreme Court have not learned the lesson my father taught me: stand up and take responsibility for your actions. Don’t blame others, don’t pretend you were not involved. When you take a public position, accept the consequences. It is the right thing to do. It is the honorable thing to do. Norman Rick Best Newport RI [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/6/9/2243005/-Father-s-Day-and-an-upside-down-flag-story-from-back-in-the-day?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=latest_community&pm_medium=web Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/