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It was the summer after Bush War I, and on a June morning I watched the boat-race parade in Salida. It's a long parade for a small town, so long that Ken Chlouber, then our state representative, had already finished marching with his burro near the front. Ken had come back up the street to see the rest of the cavalcade, and he and I were gossiping about politics when Dr. Doom came along.
There were two motorcycles, painted military olive-drab
like the other Doom components, and their riders wore
helmets and uniforms. Other olive-drab vehicles included a
highly modified VW bug and a big van that said Contents:
1 Adam Bomb.
But the major attraction was the
Doom-mobile,
a 1966 Chevy school bus adorned with
military paraphernalia, including a rocket-launcher on top.
The side of the bus was open, and a young woman was singing
Give peace a chance.
I've got to see what happens,
Ken told me as he
departed my side to follow that part of the parade from the
sidewalk. He seemed to have trouble believing that
wholesome heartland Salidans would tolerate a Strangelovian
anti-war protest in a community parade.
But as is usually the case in Salida, nothing happened. Which is more than you can say for worldly New York City, where the Doom-mobile is now disassembled and rusting in an impound lot.
Dr. Doom,
the principal behind the Doom-mobile,
is Ralph R.T.
Taylor, who served as Salida's mayor
from 1998 to 2000. He started building the bus in 1986.
It's been in most local festivals (to the extent that the
local newspaper publisher compared it to a hemorrhoid), and
has traveled widely: protests at Rocky Flats,
demonstrations in Nevada, Republican conventions in Houston
and Philadelphia.
This time around, R.T. had the bus up for sale on E-bay
because my kids were scared they'd inherit it.
He
was hoping to get $3,500 for it, but now he's hoping it
won't bankrupt him.
He and some friends drove the old bus across the country last month. In New Jersey, everything checked out, but on the way to Manhattan and the Republican National Convention, a ground connection came loose and he had no brake or signal lights. He should have been pulled over on Aug. 28 by the New York police, and he was.
They wanted to look at everything inside and out,
R.T. told me last week, and I offered to show them
anything they wanted to see. But they insisted on tearing
it apart themselves.
Soon the bus was no longer
drivable, and R.T. tried to give the title to a cop, who
refused to take it.
The bus was towed away. R.T. got a ticket for driving an unsafe vehicle, which was fair, but he's also getting hit with a host of other charges, including $50 a day for impoundment for a vehicle that he can't drive and no longer wants. So far, he hasn't found a solution.
I need a New York lawyer,
he said, but I can't
find one who's interested. Even the ACLU turned me
down.
So if you know of a New York lawyer who can handle a traffic case before it bankrupts R.T., let me know and I'll pass it along to our former mayor. Meanwhile, I'm glad I live in a part of the country where we still have a First Amendment.
In last Tuesday's column, I erred when I wrote that Bresnan Communications, the cable company here, was owned by Charter which was owned by Paul Allen of Microsoft.
In 1999, Bresnan agreed to sell its cable systems to
Charter; this was widely reported in the business press as
Charter's acquisition of Bresnan. Charter's own press
release in early 2000 stated that it has completed the
previously announced $3.1 billion acquisition of Bresnan
Communications.
However, the sale involved only the physical assets, primarily cable systems in the Midwest. Bresnan retained its corporate identity, and in 2003 got back into operations by acquiring cable systems, not just around here in central Colorado, but also in cities like Grand Junction, Casper, Cheyenne, Billings and Missoula.
Bresnan is privately held, I have been assured by its corporate spokesperson, and it is not a subsidiary of Paul Allen's Charter. So I now feel better about sending that check every month, and in the future, I shall check more thoroughly when I think I see the Microsoft Plan for World Domination in action.
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