The prompt for today is transmission. I groaned.
Even though I grew up in a science-y medical family, where my first thought should have been disease transmission or something like that, I thought of a car.
I don’t understand cars, specifically car engines.
When I was in high school, I found out I could miss classes one afternoon by taking the ASVAB (Armed Forces Vocational Aptitude Battery) test. It was for kids who were looking to go into the military. I wasn’t looking to go into the military, but I was looking to miss a few classes.
I’ve always been a good test-taker – very logical brain and all that. I was good in English, had taken a year of French, and was taking Latin. I had always been placed in advanced math classes. However, the ASVAB had questions that were so puzzling to me that I was flat-out guessing on.
The question I remember best is “What is the function of a carburetor?” I had no idea.
After the test, I asked one of the boys in my class about carburetors. He immediately answered — because he knew — but I was no better informed on carburetors than I was before the question or the test for that matter.
Over the years, I’ve told that story and asked many people what a carburetor does.
I know the answer, but I really don’t. The answer that I could now correctly choose in a multiple guess situation on a test is that the carburetor mixes air with fuel. The fuel needs air to burn.
To be clear, those are just words that I’m saying. I don’t know what they mean.
When I coached swimming, I would get in the water before giving the swimmers a new drill to do so that I knew what the drill felt. I knew from my own experience what their arm should feel like or how their legs should be kicking.
Carburetors? I don’t know.
Transmissions? I don’t know.
I asked a friend what a car transmission does. He said it changes the gears, or changes the car from park to drive, something like that.
“So it’s like the stick-shift when I had a standard?” I asked.
“No,” he said, “that’s a gear box.”
Clear as mud.
I’m a deep-diver. I want to understand. Something in my brain has to click so it’s more than words I’m saying. I want it to be something I really know.
This is why I watch the god-awful videos of the shootings.
Sometimes the words people say don’t line up with what I’m seeing.
So I watch another video.
And another.
I listen to the explanations from one side.
And then from the other.
I may never understand carburetors or transmissions, but I feel very confident in saying that the victims in Minneapolis are not the Border Patrol agents (as Gregory Bovino says), but are the people who are trying to help their neighbors and are ending up dead.
I really don’t understand how we came to this place as a country. That’s even more of a mystery to me than a carburetor.
Hot Dogs and Marmalade 
The victims in Minneapolis are absolutely the helpers. I believe my eyes, my rational thought process, and my ability to not be deceived by government progaganda.
Sally, I took the ASVAB in HS. We weren’t given an option – everyone took the test! I did well and was told I would be a great mechanic. Of course that was definitely NOT what I wanted to do… As for the videos – it’s murder plain and simple!
Dear Sally, Your last comments about who is the true victim has been nagging me. Either a family member in law enforcement rarely are things black & white. I am appalled at the lack of respect for those doing a difficult and dangerous job, 76% of those apprehended have been illegal immigrants with other crimes on their record the other 24% were in the company of the other 76%… with that being said, if you disagree with illegal immigrants being deported make calls, write letters, if you protest do not threaten or bring guns or crash cars to make your point. I have frequently disagreed with policies and have expressed myself loudly and frequently but always with respect and to the people who can actually change the law. Which makes more sense. Enjoy your posts this one just struck a chord I could not let go
Jamie! So good to hear from you! I really appreciate your perspective.
I’ve been observing all that’s going, trying hard to see all sides. I agree there is a huge lack of respect for people doing a dangerous job. At the same time, those people doing that job seem to have lost sight of trying to de-escalate the situations. Both sides just get louder and more chaotic.
I have two dear friends here who both immigrants from Cuba. One (I’ll call her M) just got her citizenship a couple years ago and the smile on her face when she told me that she had passed the test was priceless. M now hides in her home, though, whenever she isn’t at her job. One of her co-workers was arrested this summer when he went to his scheduled immigration hearing. He was a working tax-paying on-the-road-to-citizenship man. M passed the English test for citizenship, but her English isn’t strong. She looks Hispanic because she is. She lives in fear all the time. She escaped Cuba because of the abuses there.
I told my sister about M and she couldn’t understand that. “But she’s citizen,” my sister said. I think we can’t understand it because we’ve never had to live in that kind of fear.
When I watch the Minneapolis protests, I think of M. I try to imagine how she must feel. If someone were to approach her and challenge her, I would IMMEDIATELY go to her side. I’ve gone to the protests here because, while I believe we need immigration reform, I don’t believe that what we’re doing is accomplishing that.
I hope that you’ve watched the video of the second shooting. It’s awful to watch, but it shows a man going to aid another person and getting pepper-sprayed, beaten, and ultimately shot. Yes, he had a concealed gun — which was taken off his person before shots were fired. When I think of someone carrying a concealed weapon, I think of the subway shooter in NYC some years ago who was stopped by someone legally carrying a weapon. I think people who go to the trouble to get the permits and all that — especially people who have demonstrated caring for others with their lifestyle — are carrying that weapon for altruistic reasons. It’s a separate argument. But he never brandished the weapon, and it was actually removed from him before he was shot.
He is not the first person to carry a weapon to a protest either. I believe that some of the January 6 protesters were armed.
I’ll look into the statistics that you site. I’ve heard very different ones, but I’ll try to dig in and get to the bottom of them.
In the meantime, yes, I’ve called and written my senators and representative multiple times and will continue that.
Thanks again for commenting.
Sally