You betcha!

Yesterday I jumped out of bed at 3:41 a.m., almost 1 hour later than my planned wakeup call of 3:00 a.m. After a quick shower, shave and dress, and a quick stop at the ATM machine for some cash, my wife and I were on the highway at 4:20 a.m. for our destination of Reno, Nevada. For most of the 2-hour trip, I felt like a “rich man” because we had the highway almost exclusively to ourselves with the exception of an occasional trucker we passed along the way.

As we approached Reno, the view of the city lights from the highway brought back memories of when we lived there for 6 months in 1979 after I graduated from college. I saw many changes and evidence of growth as we exited off the highway taking the Virginia Street off ramp. But I also saw a lot of things that hadn’t changed as Reno is still a gambling city like Las Vegas with bright lights illuminating from one casino after another on North Virginia Street. Our destination was the Reno-Sparks Convention Center, about 5 miles away on South Virginia Street.

It seemed so surreal as memories flashed in my mind while driving down Virginia Street as that is the street I drove every day going to and from work. Then I discovered that the convention center is less than one mile from the apartment complex where we lived almost 30 years earlier.

All these memories ended, however, when we entered the convention center parking lot as my wife and I talked about the event we were about to attend, a rally where the guest speaker was Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin.

Well a couple hours later, Sarah Palin walked down the ramp onto the stage and stood behind a podium where she spoke to an enthusiastic crowd for about 40 minutes. She was definitely speaking to the choir and had a very captive audience. The economy and taxes, family values, foreign relations, fighting the war against terrorism, she covered it all. Joe the Plumber came up in her speech as did someone new – Tito the Builder, an immigrant who is now a proud business owner, born in Columbia but “made” in the U.S.A. That was well received by the crowd. This was the opportunity I had been waiting for, a chance for me to reconcile the Sarah Pain I’d seen watching the Vice Presidential debate on television and countless YouTube videos with the Sarah Palin live and upfront.

After listening to everything she had to say during her 40-minute speech, I felt qualified to judge for myself and nobody else if she has the qualifications and values I am looking for in the person I want to be the next Vice President, who could one day be the next President of the U.S.

Do I think she has the qualifications and values to do the job? You betcha!

Pax Domini sit semper vobiscum