Chugger's election wood

See all them 'Vote For Me!' signs? Walk up to one; take a closer
look. See that stick the sign is stapled to? School Board is big.
Five, six people wanting the job (pay is pretty good!) But look at
the SIGN.

Paper or plastic sign stapled to a stick.

Lookit the stick!!

Yeah; a piece of redwood lath. No knots. Grain run-out of better
than 15:1. 1/4" thick by 1-1/2" wide. Set up your table saw or band-
saw to cut a quarter-inch stick and run those sticks through it.
BINGO! You got yourself a whole bundle of 1/4 x 1/4 straight-
grained, light-weight, stronger than spruce sticks that are suitable
for making Chugger's wings.

Nay, you can't just go out and pull the things up. They don't belong
to you. But you can CALL the election headquarters for each of those
people and ask them what they're gonna do with the signs. By law, at
least in my community, they gotta pull them up, get rid of them.
Otherwise they're in violation of... something. Gets them a
misdemeanor ticket and a fine... and they STILL gotta pull them up.

Unless someone pulls them for them.

Call then all. But keep in mind, most of them have posted five
hundred or a thousand signs... and they're all over town. Gonna cost
you a couple gallons of gas just to get there. And once there, you
can only pull up the ones for which you have permission. (Be a good
idea to have a signed letter giving you permission. Otherwise, it's
illegal to taper with voting materials.) But don't tell anyone you're
making an airplane. They'll think you're a coo-koo. So tell them you
need the sticks for your tomato plants. Or you're making kites for
kids (Lotsa guys do, including this old fhart.) Worse case, tell them
you heat with wood, want the signs for kindling. But get WRITTEN
PERMISSION. Letter in a folder, along with the others. Anybody asks,
show them the letter.

Crazy? Mebbe so. But then, in today's economic environment scratch-
building your own airplane isn't any crazier than some of the claims
those wanna-bee politicians are spouting. Gonning lower our taxes and
increase our benefits at the same time? Gimme a break. That's pie in
the sky. You gotta be brain-dead to vote for somebody like that.
About the best you can do is vote for the person who promises to steal
the least.

Not so crazy, tell them you'll pull their signs for a dime a sign. Or
mebbe start with two-bits, work your way down to a dime; tell them
with the price of gas being what it is, you can't pull them for less
than ten cents each.

Okay, your town is different from my town. Odds are, the sticks are
the same. go take a look before you jump into it. Some sign-stakes
are ripped from 2x4's, liable to be anything from hemlock to Douglas
Fir. You only want the ones that are redwood lath.

I started doing this about eight years ago. Got myself some really
nice redwood lath. But this time I can't do it. My back is totally
screwed up; I can barely stand up and climbing in & out of a '65 VW
bus is an Athletic Event.

I'm going to post this message around -- hang it up on some sites that
have nothing to do with building your own airplane (which nobody
believes any way). So go ahead; give it a try. All they can do is
mumble a bit then say 'no.' But odds are, a lot of them will say
'Yes, thank gawd! We've been trying to find someone to do it."

Democracy. Somebody has got to take care of the details.

No reason it can't be you.

-Bob Hoover