Look Out Mr. Obama... Mama's on the Warpath

So tonight Reagan and I made the familiar trip up to my hometown in Ohio to #1. pick up our baby girl from her two week stint with Papaw and Mia and #2. spend Friday night with all of my mom's cousins and their families at the family farm for a fall barn dance.

As I've written about before, my parents live on a busy state route in one of the many po-dunk-ville's that make up the great battleground state of Ohio. Being as it is election time, yards are filled to the max with the little plastic signs promoting their choice for President.

Allow me to pause for a moment and show you something that has become a great conversation piece in our circle of family and friends... the fact that since the announcement of Sarah Palin as the VP choice for John McCain, my mother has more than once been mistaken for the Governor of Alaska. It's just a small resemblance, especially if my mom is wearing her glasses, but a resemblance nonetheless. See for yourself...

Not that my mom needed a look-a-like for her to jump on the McCain-Palin bandwagon (no pun intended) I remember throughout my life her always being one of the first to get involved when an election year rolled around. Beyond attending rallies and things like that, she's been known to collect books, calendars, and anything else she can get her hands on for President's Reagan and the 2nd President Bush. (She's already attended two Palin rallies in this area in the past several weeks.) Raised with strong morals and an even stronger work ethic, firmly believing in a person's right to life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, (and of course the right to bear arms) my mom is more than proud to call herself a licensed gun-toting all-American woman. This, I'm sure contributes to the fact that, (along with her palin t-shirt) of all the souvenirs she could've chosen at the Palin rallies she went to, she chose this one...

Autographed, of course.

So why should it surprise me that in such a critical time in our nation's history that she would want to shout it out to the state of Ohio her choice for our next President and Vice President?
As a matter of fact, one of the last things she said to me on the phone tonight during our drive up was... "I can't wait for you to see the sign in our yard." I'm thinking... "oh it's one of those cute little pink ones, or maybe it has lipstick on it to match her t-shirt..."

So here Reagan and I come, down the road, past the spaceships, (again... see here) and what should we see several houses before we reach Mom and Dad, but this...

You can see measuring by the tree behind it, that this ain't no 2 foot plastic yard sign. And there aren't one, but two... one on each side of the driveway and in lights no less. "Booooo" I said as we drove by it. "How horrible... why would a person do such a th..."

And then I saw it. The next words out of my mouth went something like this...

"Ohhhhh. Shuuuuuuuut. Uuuuuuuup. They didn't!" Followed by several outbursts of uncontrollable laughter. "Reagan!!! What did she do? (I think I hit him in the arm about then...) Where did they get that thing? No way! No stinkin' way!" And then a little more laughter...

What was no more than the size of a small pin head at first sight grew larger and larger as we pulled into view.


Y'all... this. thing. is. HUGE. I promise. Ten feet tall at least... maybe a little more. And no- that doesn't include the flags on top of it.

Now c'mon... you're either laughing, or your mouth is gaping open, but you know you wish you would've thought of it first. And only my mom. Don't get me wrong... my dad is all about him some conversative moral leadership... mom's just always had a little bigger mouth than he has is all. :) (Unless it's at one of my brother's soccer games... but that'd be a different post now, wouldn't it?)

You'd have to know this Christian comedian Mark Lowry sketch I grew up listening to to really understand the meaning of what I was thinking as we stepped out of the car to see this sign, the yellow made of sturdy metal holding the wooden sign up with chains. All I could think was "GET IT MAMA!!!!!!" I immediately walked into her room and said "You told me you couldn't wait for me to see your yard sign... you didn't tell me it was ten feet tall and BULLETPROOF!"

Turns out that the Obama supporter down the street took these metal pieces in to my brother in laws tool shop to have 'em welded together, but never implied what they were for. When my brother-in-law's boss saw that Obama sign pieced together between those pieces he'd welded, he was pretty ticked off. Turns out he went right back to that metal shop and built him up a nice little bigger-and-better and parked it right in my parents front yard for all to see... including any undecided astronauts currently working on the space station.

So there you have it, oh great Buckeye State... vote for who you may... if I were you though, I'd make sure my Mama wasn't looking over your shoulder when you cast your ballot.

Consider yourself warned.