response to peg

normally i'd just put the responses to the comments in the comment section, but i suspect there are going to be rather a lot of words, so i'm just making a post of them.

if you'd like to be all caught up on the conversation, you can start here.

part the first: in the video you don't see much of barb's crankiness any more than you see my constant complaining that i have not pooped enough to be comfortable.

suffice it to say that over a period of four days that tollbooth was the subject of several hours of discussion.

barb was mostly upset that when we got on the road there was no sign that eventually a toll would be collected and that by the time we knew there was going to be a toll we were ONLY TWO EXITS AWAY, plus where do they get off charging toll for THAT road when it doesn't even do anything special but it's out in the middle of nowhere?

i tried to suggest that maybe two exits was proper advance notice that a road was going to be a toll road later on, but barb was having none of it.

did you want them to put up a sign the second we got into new brunswick that there might be a toll section three or four hours along? should they notify anyone getting on the highway at any point to travel any distance that somewhere along the way there MIGHT be a toll booth?

furthermore, when you get on interstate 87 crossing from canada, nobody bothers to put up a sign warning motorists that there's going to be tolls charged when they get to albany three hours down the road.

i suggested that this toll booth out in the middle of nowhere was actually a great move on the part of the highway people in that most of the people paying the toll are long range users of the road and not the locals going about their daily business. it makes sense to pick a nowhere section of road and charge toll on it.

but barb wasn't having any of it.

it was a main topic of conversation for DAYS. this would not have surprised me had it been, say, my grandfather sitting in the car next to me, but barb is usually much more easygoing and comes equipped with an understanding of how things are done.

so. cranky.

part the second: yankee doodle makes perfect sense in this context when you realize that yankee doodle was originally a british song intended to poke fun at the colonials for their backwardness. it was subsequently adopted by the colonials as an anthem of "oh, yeah? we may be backward, but we are kicking your butt. how do you like us NOW?"

so it may be used effectively by canadian reenactors as both friendly gesture AND snarky commentary.

simultaneously.

bonus.