I’m still tired from working July 4th with Swamp Rabbit at a folk fest in upstate PA. Not a good event for sales, too rural and rightwing, and way too hot. I pitched a lot of German Americans with pot bellies and jowls. Some non-Germans too, I guess. One fellow told me no thanks, he doesn’t like clean energy, he was moving to South Carolina to get away from all the socialists. I’ll bet his great-grandparents were socialists.

A corn dog vendor told me he’d trained as an aerospace engineer in his youth and had wanted to be an astronaut but had been too big and heavy to make the cut. I didn’t believe him, but I liked his story.

To be polite, I said it’s a shame the government doesn’t put much money into the space program anymore. The corn dog man said Donald Trump will fix that, wait till he puts together his Space Force. I whipped out my phone and told him, “Excuse me, I’ve gotta make a call.”

Across the road, a bearded man hawked a mysterious lotion to passers-by. “Ladies, would you like some soft, smooth hands?” he shouted, over and over. I pictured him peddling lopped-off body parts. A special on lady fingers, perhaps. The heat was getting to me. I’d stayed too long in Pennsyltucky.

Swamp Rabbit guzzled water from a gallon jug. It was too hot to drink whiskey, even for him.

I grabbed the jug and said, “You ready to hit the road, rabbit?”

I didn’t have to ask him twice.