Date:   4/2/2008 10:18:27 PM ( 17 y ago)
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URL:   https://www.curezone.org/forums/fm.asp?i=1146503

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Just some side comments, somebody in the Obama camp must have been given a pre-release or tipoff to that Buchannan article. That article dropped the names of Altoona and Johnstown. A week ago the local Altoona paper ran a story headlining the situation that both Obama and Clinton had plans to stump in Johnstown and State College but not Altoona. That was fine as far as I was concerned. What is interesting is that since that story, there has since been local stories sort of providing a walk down memory lane of how various old people still have the signed napkin, or a piece of rug lint or other trinket that they salvaged back in the day when one of Eisenhower's assistants walked through town, his one shoe alleged to have scuffed the lint on the rug, after which he signed the napkin as part of an impromptu visit during the campaign season of the 50's. Eisenhower himself did not show up, but he sent a vice assistant junior deputy something or other to walk through town in his name. Now that it's 50 years in the wake of that ominous event, the local newspaper has been dusting off it's archives to recount a bit about how pomp & circumstance unfolded in those olden days, and how there is still, to this day, a cute senior couple, alive, with a preserved piece of some sort of oddball memento to remember that event by. Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran sentiment is one thing, but this to me is a more fitting example of how people need to consider getting a life. I mean, lets face it, we're talking about ordinary people here, hangers on to aspirants to political office, ordinary garden variety stuffed suits that momentarily passed through town, not Christ!

So, that article from about a week ago had the tenor of promoting a sense of "woe is us, the campaigners do not want to stump us" attitude. So far, so good. Then, yesterday's paper told the Santa Claus like miracle appearance / sighting story (or Easter Bunny, or Elvis, or Lone Ranger , or Tooth Fairy, or ......take your pick for whatever celebrity causes you to go goo goo ga ga and basically lose all sense of dignity), yesterday's front page ran the story of the surprise visit Obama made to Altoona over the weekend. First stop was the old, original Texas Hotdog shop downtown. That is pretty much the heart of downtown, or at least, that is where the heart of downtown was once known to be prior to the era of the 70's when the Post (WWII) Zero Industrial Growth global plans really began to hit various parts of previously industrialized Pennsylvania very hard. Shortly after he visited the Pleasant Valley Rec Center.

As an aside, if there are any DeNiro fans in the house, you may remember a flick he made 20-30 years ago, the name I do not remember as I did not see this flick, but merely heard about it. The character he played was cast as an Altoonan, stereo-typed to be "wife beater, bowler, and donut-shop hanger-outer". Apparently, that was how Hollywood of the 70's era had summed up the character of the Altoona area. Prior to that, the last time this area had been given any big-screen notoriety was when the camera crews rolled into the Racetown Dam Park area (a Fed U.S. Corp of Engineers project from the late 60's, early 70's) to film some of the footage (outdoor scenerey) involving Danny Devito and (Nicholson, I believe ... ?) for the movie "Hoffa" . At that time it astounded me to know that Hollywood had the kind of cash to throw around just so they could fly in a cast and crew from California to rural Pennsylvania just to film what amounted to about 45 seconds of on screen scenery in a wooded setting...... (shrug)

Back to Obama, it was at the latter rec center that he apparently incurred his recent bowling infamy. Qualification: the story says he only bowled 7 frames ... or 5.14 pins knocked down per frame. From what I can gather from this short story, the visit was enough of a surprise on such a short notice that it does not appear there were any significant crowds that showed up. The story says "a big crowd showed up outside" but reading between the lines in trying to put that into more quantifiable terms, I take this to mean that "big crowd outside " was probably defined by something along the lines of perhaps a few dozen people making enough commotion for several dozens of people. Interestingly, Obama bowled and then photo-op'd with what looks like an average, perhaps lower middle class white couple. Story found here:


http://www.altoonamirror.com/page/content.detail/id/506060.html?nav=742




 

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