And then there was one, as in Canada-based teams alive in the Stanley Cup playoffs.

That means fewer chances to hear xenophobic Canadian fans booing the U.S. National Anthem during home games.

This United States-Canada thing, rooted in President Donald Trump’s repeated references to Canada as our potential 51^st state, blew up during the Four Nations Faceoff, which took the place of the traditional NHL all-star game this year.

Fans in Canada, perhaps aware their economy and culture are the little brothers to the United States, took out their frustrations by booing our National Anthem pregame, and the U.S. team during games.

U.S. players, feeling the need to respond, opened a round-robin game vs. Canada with several early fights, and won the game to boot.

It was a metaphor for what might happen if Canada’s threats to take on the U.S. militarily came to pass.

Canada got revenge later by winning the championship game, needing overtime.

Now, we are getting late in the Stanley Cup playoffs and only Edmonton stands as a Canada-based team alive in the conference finals, joining defending champion Florida there, along with Carolina and Dallas.

It rankles Canadian hockey fans to no end that the last Canada-based team to hoist Lord Stanley’s Cup were the 1993 Montreal Canadiens.

Sure, about 40 percent of the NHL players are Canadians, with 29 percent from the United States, 10 percent from Sweden and 6 percent from Russia, to name the top countries. But give us our Cup, eh!

When the anthem booing spread into the playoffs, it was a curious contradiction considering that some of the top players on the Canada teams, people such as Toronto’s star forward Auston Matthews and Winnipeg goalie Connor Hellebuyck, are Americans.

Imagine them taking in the home fans booing our national anthem before games, then the same fans expecting these players to lead their teams to a Cup victory.

If top-seeded Winnipeg hadn’t lost to Dallas in conference semifinal play, if Toronto hadn’t been humbled in Game 7 of its match with Florida, Canada might have had three of four remaining franchises.

If, it is the biggest two-letter word in the English language.

By the end of that 6-1 Florida beatdown of Toronto Sunday night, a Game 7 played in Toronto, the home fans had moved on from booing our national anthem to booing the home team, throwing hats, jerseys and beers onto the ice to express their unhappiness.

Edmonton still could prevail and ease Canada’s collective sadness. The Oilers have two of the best players in the world in Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl. The team’s questionable goaltending has picked up of late.

But Florida seems to be gathering steam, as are Carolina and Dallas.

And, even if Edmonton can win the Stanley Cup, will it really cure Canada’s inferiority complex when it comes to the United States?

Doubtful.

James Comey would seem to be either a liar, or a moron based on recent – and past – events.

Certainly he is a narcissist, desperate to be seen and heard, no matter how absurd the situation. It would seem to be fitting to lump him in the beat me, bore me, but never ignore me crowd.

We speak of Comey, the former FBI director, the one who found that Hillary Clinton violated classified document rules with her private server, but gave her a pass. It was a precursor to Joe Biden being given a break on classified offenses from special counsel Robert Hur due to Biden being considered a senile and sympathetic old man.

Comey and his FBI, after they ignored Clinton’s misdeeds, would go on to bend the rules in the get-Trump, Russia, Russia, Russia hoax. Eventually, Trump sent Comey packing. The hoax was exposed. Comey seethed.

Since then, Comey has been a petty sniper at Trump, going so far as to endorse the cackling hyena Kamala Harris in the 2024 election . Another Comey failure as it turns out.

Comey often is wrong, but never in doubt. And you wonder how such a buffoon ever got to be head of the FBI.

On his way out the door, Comey violated FBI rules by leaking private memos regarding conversations with Trump. This from the self-righteous gasbag who often proclaims to be nonpartisan and only interested in what is best for the country.

The Justice Department’s inspector general hit Comey hard for his violations but, as is customary in these things, there were no charges.

Fast-forward to the present, and Comey took to social media – megaphone for morons – to post what appears to pass for a clever post in his brain-damaged circles.

Comey claimed he just happened on seashells that were arranged to form “86 47.” Comey felt the need to post an image, then delete the post when blowback occurred.

Funny how this guy just happens on clever seashell messages, like the blue ‘Vote Harris” shell he came upon along a beach and hurriedly posted to social media.

I’d like to see Comey repeat these claims while strapped to a polygraph.

This latest seashell message has been interpreted widely as a call to eliminate, perhaps kill, Trump, who already has survived two assassination attempts.

For those who share Comey’s professed ignorance, 86 is slang often used in reference to getting rid of something.

Comey’s explanation for posting, then deleting the 86 47 effort is he was not aware of the meaning. So, why post at all?

It reminds me of all the people who were unaware Joe Biden was a vegetable while serving as president. I discuss this often with others who, like me, realized Biden was MIA mentally long before he was president.

Biden gave ample indications before taking the Oval Office, including a prominent gaffe when, during his presidential campaign in February 2020, he told a South Carolina crowd he was a “Democratic candidate for United States Senate.”

Biden also claimed in that general time frame to have been arrested in South Africa while trying to help Nelson Mandela, and that his son Beau had been the United States Attorney General (actually, he had been Delaware attorney general).

Yes, anyone paying attention five-plus years ago knew Biden was more than a few bricks shy of a full load mentally. But the media claims they had no way of knowing for themselves and those nasty White House types fooled them. Yeah, right.

Similarly, anyone paying attention knows Comey has a problem with honesty and following the rules.

Some have leaped to the assumption Comey will get some jail time for this 86 47 post. Don’t kid yourselves. Our pathetic excuse for a justice system will give Comey a slap on the wrist and send him back to his beach, where he can gin up more ridiculous social media posts to show the fawning crowd on the left what a good little boy he is.

A favorite literary device is the open letter. Ostensibly, these missives are directed to some famous type with whom the writer would wish to communicate, perhaps to offer advice.

In reality, open letters are meant for you, dear reader, to convey the writer’s opinion about events involving the famous personage. If said person happens to see the article, well, that’s serendipity.

Now that you understand the premise, this is an open letter to David Hogg, vice chairman of the Democrat Party, the man that party now is having second thoughts regarding and wants to remove from his party post. Hogg’s many sins include saying out loud that too many prominent Democrats are too far past retirement age, perhaps senile and certainly ineffective.

Dear David “Boss” Hogg,

I see the Democrat Party to which you pledge your allegiance, the group that drones on about protecting democracy and in practice does all it can to subvert the democratic process, doesn’t want you in a position of influence any longer.

They want an election do-over. I hope you see the irony with your Harvard education, inexplicably in history of conservative political movements.

Let me say up front I’ve never been a fan of yours. I saw you as a pathetic political opportunist, leveraging a school shooting at your high school into a national platform for gun control and general hatred of all things conservative and traditional.

But Democrats were willing to overlook your many shortcomings and even voted you in as a vice chairman of the party.

You rewarded that faith by noting the many leadership flaws of the Democrats, prompting blowback only the left can gin up almost immediately.

Longtime Democrat operative, Lizard Man James Carville, called you a “comtemptible little twerp” for seeking to bring younger blood into Democrat leadership.

I read that you and Carville since have made up. Perhaps you bought him some new LSU attire, with party funds?

Others in the Democrat Party are not so easily dissuaded. They want you out, claiming your election had ‘irregularities.”

So, I guess that makes Democrats election deniers, of their own election.

Boss, you should expect as much. Democrats are the ones who cobble up the concept of super delegates to get their favored presidential candidate nominated. They cite legal process, except when it does not favor them. Then they ignore that, too.

Just ask Bernie Sanders, who has been stabbed in the back by his party more than Caesar.

Recall, too, how other prominent Democrats went after President Trump with Lawfare, screaming no one is above the law. Now that some of these progressives find themselves in legal jeopardy, suddenly they are above the law.

Face it, Boss, you have two strikes against in you in modern Democrat politics. You are white and you are a man – I’m just presuming on the last.

Meanwhile, the failed candidate for your post, the one who filed the objection, ticks more identity politics boxes than a gay, illegal immigrant, socialist, person of color. Just to name a few that I’ve seen reported, this complainant is a woman activist and Native American.

Credit to you, Boss, for not slinking away apologetically, like the typical testosterone-challenged leftist dude. You are fighting back in the court of public opinion.

But why do you want to hang with the party of hypocrisy? Notable converts such as Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard would welcome you to the right side, metaphorically and literally.

Even the sainted Ronald Reagan was a Democrat before seeing the light.

We’d invite you to move to the political right, where your college studies might prove to be usable. Just leave the anti-gun stance behind.

All the best,

Sam Ross Jr.

It didn’t really shock to me to read reports of the Kansas City Chiefs superfan called “ChiefsAholic” being sentenced to 32 years in prison for a string of robberies.

After all, fan is a term derived from the root word fanatic.

While the ChiefsAholic story is the extreme example, I’ve seen a lot of bizarre fan behavior in spending more than three decades covering the sports world.

I admit to having become something of a fan myself, choosing teams for which I root now that professional concerns no longer preclude that. And I’ve gone to a game or two as a fan wearing a team’s jersey.

Never, however, have I painted my face, or body in team colors, taken off my coat and shirt in sub-freezing temperatures to show (drunken?) support, used social media to issue death threats to underperforming athletes, or indulged in any of the other extreme behaviors exhibited by fans gone wild.

ChiefsAholic, the guy who showed up at games dressed as a gray wolf, with Chiefs boxer shorts, had a sideline as a bank robber. Reports indicate he needed the cash to finance his travel, not to mention having a gambling problem.

It would seem to me that fanaticism, be it sports, politics, religion, is a Petri dish for extreme behavior. In the sports example, people who are not content merely to root for the home team, and instead turn their homes into temples of memorabilia, and often also turn themselves into human billboards, are people you might think would be vulnerable to other extreme behavior.

In the case of ChiefsAholic, that would be a presumption proven to be correct.

Some of our most extreme homegrown fans are those of the Steelers. Recall about 20 years back the story of the guy who died and had as his funeral home display with him sitting in a recliner watching a loop of Steelers highlights on television, remote on hand.

I was covering the Steelers-Raiders game in 1990 at the LA Coliseum when a Steelers fan was nearly beaten to death by Raiders counterparts for the unpardonable sin of wearing a Steelers T-shirt while he traversed their section of what the Los Angeles Times called “low-priced seats.”

Steelers medical staff attended to the victim before he was taken to the hospital, in critical condition.

Perhaps the greatest example of mass fan misbehavior I witnessed personally came Dec. 10, 1983, at New York’s Shea Stadium.

The Steelers playoff hopes were slipping away with each Cliff Stoudt interception in a season he was called upon to replace injured Hall of Fame quarterback Terry Bradshaw.

Stoudt, as was his wont, blamed his lacklustre wide receivers.

But Bradshaw returned to bail out the Steelers, throwing two touchdown passes, one each to Greg Garrity and Calvin Sweeney, in just over a quarter of work before blowing out his elbow for good.

The Steelers won, 34-7, but it was Bradshaw’s final game. It also was the final Jets game at Shea Stadium, which primarily was the home of baseball’s Mets.

Fans were into taking home souvenirs. Late in the game, fans in one end zone were ripping up bleacher boards and swinging them like swords. Other bad behavior was common.

The stadium’s jail cell, located along the tunnel to the dressing rooms, was jammed with misbehaving fans when it was time to talk to Steelers coach Chuck Noll after the game.

Back then, postgame interviews tended to be informal affairs, often conducted in such tunnels or other unsuitable locations.

Twice, Noll’s postgame remarks were interrupted by a pack of police pushing past and then coming back again, trying to get medical aid for a fellow officer who had failed to compensate for the December breeze and sprayed himself with some sort of pepper spray.

Noll just shook his head, flashing a bemused smile.

Steelers fans treat their good luck talisman, the Terrible Towel, with reverence usually reserved for religious artifacts. One such fan had a Terrible Towel at the Vatican after the new pope was named.

A humorous towel anecdote, from the Steelers’ Super Seventies decade, saw a fan run onto the field during a Steelers-Oilers playoff game at Three Rivers Stadium wearing two Terrible Towels as loincloths, over a pair of shorts. As I recall, he drank a ceremonial toast at midfield and ran off the field.

You may not be surprised to learn that the guy later in life reportedly ended up in legal trouble, for transgressions that included loan misdeeds and giving the appearance of looking to commit suicide by leaping off one of Pittsburgh’s bridges.

Typical fan stuff.

President Donald Trump had a huge Mother’s Day weekend, fitting in a perverse way since so many potty-mouthed Democrats like to refer to him as a mother(something).

While most celebrated their mothers in recent days, Trump and his people were busy negotiating the framework to a trade deal with China; producing a ceasefire between India and Pakistan, a couple of nuclear powers shooting at each over their border; getting Hamas to free an American hostage; and, just for the icing on the cake, Trump signed an executive order to reduce drug costs.

Also, Trump has Qatar offering him a free replacement Air Force One, since Boeing can’t seem to get its act together on the plane it is contractually obligated to deliver for this purpose.

Predictably, the media and Democrats are having a cow over the Qatar plane, interrupting their current mission of grandstanding outside ICE detention facilities, or even interfering with ICE arrests on the street, to gripe about this gift and lament its appearance of Trump being bought off.

Funny, none of them had problems about Hunter Biden’s “jobs” seemingly on the strength of Daddy Joe’s political office.

As one text message on the Monday night Jesse Watters program asked, does this mean we need to give the Statue of Liberty back to France?

It’s got to be tough to be an anti-Trumper. Oh, were there long faces on CNBC Monday. You’d think a business channel would be giddy on a day the Dow Industrials were up 1,100 points or so with similarly large gains in the NASDAQ and S&P 500 indices, owing largely to the China trade progress.

But, no, these Cassandras were caught with their pants down after predicting doom since Trump came out with his tariff plans in early April. Surprise, the initial negative kneejerk reaction, resulting in large losses in the stock markets, has been largely recaptured, with interest.

Truly CNBC’s Steve LiesMan had a bad day.

As noted on this blog last month, the only way to lose during the tariff overreaction was to panic sell. If you kept your wits – and your positions — you are fine today.

Trump told people not to be Panicans. Did they listen? Some, perhaps.

I lost some of my net worth Monday due to the collapse of the gold price by about $100 an ounce. But the metals and mining stocks have run up hard in recent weeks — one of my IRA’s hit a multi-year high Friday — and this pullback likely is little more than a pause that refreshes.

Regardless, I’m glad to take one for the team, that being the United States. Funny, I don’t see similar sentiments emerging from the cabal of leftist freaks that now makes up the Democrat party.

And the anti-America domestic crowd figures to have a tough few days coming as Trump embarks on a Mid-East trip that likely will produce more good news. Already, some pundits are trying to get ahead of it, saying Trump had things lined up in advance to be announced on the trip.

But, even one of these naysayers offered that just maybe there will be something huge. After all, that’s Trump.

Trump famously has said during his campaigns that his supports will get tired of all the winning his terms produce. His first term was notable, until COVID-19 was weaponized to hamstring him. Now, this second term is producing at a much higher tempo.

But, no, I’m not nearly tired of winning yet.

Last week much was made of a study that found the defund police movements in 2020 led to an increase in crime, said crime rate falling when the push to hamstring police failed in the face of public backlash.

Surprise, people of all races, creeds and colors don’t want to deal with more crime in their neighborhoods. Imagine that.

But that’s only half the story. Punishment for convicted criminals matters greatly, too. And on that front there is a clear movement towards coddling criminals.

From the Tesla terrorist being set free due to a lack of gender-bender care in prison, to various protesters getting away with carnage all in the name of free speech, to many jurisdictions putting revolving doors on jails, to the much-cited Maryland man, we have a wave of people commiting misdeeds and expecting to pay no price – often being proved correct in that ridiculous belief.

This helps explain rogue judges believing they, too, are above the law and not bound by the very dictates they might chose to use to punish you.

It helps explain waves of shoplifting, which now has escalated to stealing trucks and train cars of goods to be resold.

Whatever is up in price is fair game. Witness thefts of huge shipments of eggs when those prices spiked briefly as we got rid of Clueless Joe and put in Donald Trump.

A lot of academics will argue that punishment is not a deterrent to crime. It is an absurd assertion from the same people who routinely insist criminals have been rehabilitated by the system, only to have those same criminals revert to their bad behavior upon release back into the general population.

I’ve long thought a simple test of the faith of these leftist apologists would be a basic rule: You certify a prisoner is safe to be placed back in society at large, and if said criminal runs afoul of the law again, you get to share the cell with him/her/it for as long as the sentence runs.

I’m pretty sure that would result in a severe drop in experts telling us the convict is safe to mix again with the rest of us.

Along that line, it is obvious that if we had capital punishment readily dispensed for the worst offenders, they at least would not be around to relapse.

And I think if the criminal public was aware such punishment was a very real possiblity, the crime rate would reflect a certain reticence to be fried, shot, or given a lethal injection.

Consider the case of the protesters who last week took over the library at Columbia, then were horrified when the doors were secured and their only option for being allowed to leave was to show identification.

These cowards, and others like them, rely on anonymity, hence the masks and other efforts at disguising themselves.

If they truly were warriors, they would not worry about being identified. Recall John Hancock’s intentionally oversized signature on the Declaration of Independence.

That the chickenheart protesters do worry about their identify being known indicates a certain level of fear. This tells us that if we want to limit such acts going forward, the solution is greater enforcement and stricter penalties, not less of either.

A main problem is these scofflaws tend to operate in the leftist sanctuary dens, secure in the knowledge that even if the police arrests them, some socialist prosecutor, judge or politician will move heaven and earth to have them released to commit more affronts.

Until citizens of such leftist strongholds change things through the ballot box and throw out the socialists, they are doomed to suffering from ever increasing disregard for the law by a growing number of their fellow residents.

The Pirates have fired manager Derek Shelton. Let the puns begin.

Shelton walks the plank.

Shelton sent to Davey Jones’s locker.

Shelton set adrift.

Bottom line, Shelton is the latest scapegoat for a franchise that just won’t/can’t compete until someone spends serious money on player payroll.

Want a catchy nautical-themed phrase to sum up all this? Try this one: Pirates changing managers is like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.

Managers make the difference of a few games during the season and just might swing a close playoff series. Beyond that, they are at the mercy of the rosters they are given.

Ownership provides the money and general managers are supposed to spend it wisely to build winning rosters. Only then can a manager produce. You need all the ingredients to be successful.

This is a recurring story for the Pirates. Back in November 1985, the Pirates hired Syd Thrift as general manager, taking over a team that had lost 104 games that season.

Three seasons later, the Pirates won 85 games. Some see Thrift as setting the foundation for three consecutive division titles from 1990 through 1992. But it wasn’t enough back then for Pirates ownership and Thrift was fired.

Thrift left with a quote that rings true today: “It ain’t easy resurrecting the dead.”

The Pirates field manager during Thrift’s tenure, Jim Leyland, is the quintessential example that even Hall of Fame managers need talent to win.

When Leyland had such top-line talent, people like Bonds, Drabek, Bonilla, Van Slyke, Smiley, Walk, they won. When those players left because the Pirates couldn’t or wouldn’t pay them, the winning stopped.

Leyland saw a similar fate after his Pirates tenure, winning a World Series title with Florida in 1997, then seeing his team dismantled and lose 108 games the next season. Did Leyland get incredibly stupid during the course of one offseason, or did Florida simply lose its talent base?

Bottom line, it really doesn’t matter who the Pirates settle on as the replacement for Shelton, unless ownership decides to spend money.

According to the ESPN story on Shelton’s firing, the Pirates began the season with the 26^th lowest payroll of 30 Major League teams.

Check the standings and the Pirates have the 28^th worst record. Cheapskate owner Bob Nutting really can’t complain much about what he’s getting for his money – or lack thereof.

PNC Park, which opened in 2001, was proclaimed to be the cure for what ailed the Pirates. The new playpen would attract fans, provide more money and help the team become competitive again.

At the time PNC was being built, I worked for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review and wrote a series looking ahead. The Cleveland (then Indians) were a supposed model of how a new ballpark brought a franchise back — to use the Thrift reference – from the dead.

Here’s the dirty little secret I exposed way back then. Even with the new stadium, the Pirates were looking to spend less on payroll than any competitive team of the time. Fast-forward to today and nothing has changed.

Barring a minor miracle, the Pirates were relegated to being irrelevant. Oh, they might slip into the postseason as a wild-card on occasion, perhaps even win the division if a lot of bad things happened to other teams. But they were no threats ever again to make, or win, the World Series.

All these decades later, that has been proven correct. Shelton is just the latest guy to get slapped in the face by the reality.

Bravely risking the charge of cultural appropriation, my gringo family observed Cinco de Mayo today by eating tacos. Someone had to do it.

Reports abound on the internet of outright cancellations – a Cinco de Mayo parade in Chicago was called for fear of ICE (immigration folks, not frozen precipitation). Events elsewhere are being held, but going low-key. Someone should have shared this low-key strategy with the frequenters of the MS-13 nightclub in Colorado before last week’s raid.

The usual outlets, CNN.com for example, told heart-wrenching tales of Cinco de Mayo events being canceled in Philadelphia and Central Oregon.

Organizers are quoted citing “safety” and putting anxiety regarding deportation over celebrating.

Cry me a river.

No doubt, some leftist organization will rush to find a sympathetic, radical, low-level judge and implore that he/she/it issue a nationwide restraining order on deportations, that those of Mexican heritage might party.

Several points beg to be made here.

First, Cinco de Mayo has become yet another opportunity for Anglos to justify alcohol abuse, such as how so many non-Irish celebrate St. Patrick’s Day as though it were a combination of Christmas and New Year’s Eve.

Second, and more important, no matter how many tacos we consumed today, I wasn’t worried about ICE showing up at my door. Understand, I’m a citizen, from birth, here absolutely legally, as is my entire family.

If you’re not here legally, celebrating or not celebrating Cinco de Mayo should be low on your list of priorities.

Perhaps returning to the land where you hold citizenship would be a good start. Come back legally, and celebrate some future Cinco de Mayo with impunity.

I am surprised that nowhere in the CNN screed on all this did I read of a Maryland dad, father, alleged domestic abuser, victimized by the ICE men coming.

Dare we dream that this sad, pathetic exercise in propaganda deifying an illegal of questionable repute, has passed its best-by date?

But, the CNN post did note Juneteenth celebrations are being scaled back, too, implying the end of the DEI grift has put a damper on contributions from “major sponsors.”

Again, it’s about time.

Still, the far-left crowd did score a minor victory today.

Word has come that the controversial 60 Minutes interview with Cackling Kamala, notable for serious massaging to make Kamala seem coherent, has been nominated for an Emmy for – wait for it – Outstanding Edited Interview.

I think I’ll have another taco.

I noted a headline the other day that about 20 percent of Americans are illiterate, a number I suspect might understate the problem considering the anecdotal evidence I see each time I venture out on the roads.

It’s not just me. Last week, President Trump felt the need to institute an executive order requiring drivers of commercial vehicles to be proficient in English, thereby being able to read, comprehend and follow the rules of the road. That we need to have such a dictate speaks to the problem – pun intended

Today, I got my latest dose of seeming illiterates behind wheels. During a short run to Richland and back there were many such drivers, of vehicles private and commercial, big and small, that I encountered.

It can’t be that they are able to read and understand, but just ignore, right?

Clearly, at least half the driving populace sees STOP and reads YIELD. How else to explain the abundance of people who pull into traffic, oblivious to the STOP sign that marked their entry point?

Even if they perceived YIELD, it’s a stretch to pull directly in front of moving traffic.

These illiterates are similarly puzzled when a sign indicates the need to stop at a given point at an intersection, often accompanied by a wide, white line. But the dolts seem to think this marks the point the rear wheels should be lined up.

Left lane turn only, no turn on red, these signs also are misunderstood. Greek to the average driver, perhaps, or simply ignored.

Math dyslexia also must be very common.

Perhaps you, too, have noticed people who think a 15-mile-an-hour zone is 51 miles an hour. It follows that 35 is 53, 25 is 52, 45 is 54.

Only when the speed limit is 55 should these math dyslexics have no problem. Alas, tell me the last time you saw most vehicles observing a 55 mph speed limit, particulary on a four-lane, divided highway.

Back to my trip to and from Richland. I saw a moron in a massive white pickup truck who felt the need to pull in front of me on Eisenhower Blvd in the Krings area, then bumble along well below the speed limit.

Before that, I’d encountered a person so terrified by signs of an approaching lane closure, that he/she/it immediately reduced travel speed to 15 mph. About half a mile later, we actually encountered the tree trimmers and the lane closure.

One of the construction sign people was no Phi Betta Kappa, either, flashing the sign to proceed, then hurriedly spinning his sign to stop, totally confusing the timid soul ahead of me, before again spinning back to the proceed message. I can only imagine what caused that.

Fortunately, after pausing to contemplate a course of action, the vehicle ahead of me moved on in painfully slow fashion, only to turn left not much farther along Goucher Street.

Traffic lights seem to be similarly confusing. Red, the universal stop color, looks green to many, with resultant near-misses and harsh language.

This phenomenon has been with us for some time. I recall many years back, getting rear-ended by a belligerent woman as I stopped before pulling from Giant Eagle onto Goucher Street.

“What are you doing,” she screamed at me.

“Stopping at a stop sign,” I told her.

“No one stops at that stop sign,” she shot back.

“I do,” was my response.

Knowing such fools are perched behind steering wheels is enough to put one on high alert anytime the need arises to drive.

Also, like the overly dramatic and self-important female space tourists, there is an urge to kiss the ground after every successful mission/drive completion.

A Tesla Cybertruck visited the neighborhood Thursday afternoon. We didn’t scream May Day, May Day, key it, or festoon it with swastikas.

Instead, we had an impromptu show and tell session with the owner.

An aside here: One of the tenets of journalism when I was practicing the dark art was you could find out a lot about a subject merely by asking individuals involved. That, and understanding that if two people knew something, it wasn’t a secret, were useful realities.

So, when the Cybertruck was spotted across the street at about 3 p.m., my wife was curious about the vehicle and decided to go out and take a close look at it. I told her that, considering the way Tesla vehicles, dealerships and charging stations are targets of left-wing lunatics, she might want to make sure the owner was aware she was not hostile before getting too close.

When I saw a man, presumably the owner, demonstrating the way the tailgate functioned, I threw on a par of flipflops and wondered out to take in the show.

A neighbor joined us. Curiosity is a shared quality.

It turns out the guy was quite the nice fellow, eager to interact. I noted I have seen another Cybertruck often around the War Memorial. He said that’s his twin brother. Yes, they both own Cybertrucks.

By way of background, these trucks are said to list for about $80,000, so I’m not in the market. I do, however, find them interesting.

Let’s face it, they’re like a stealth fighter cruising the streets with their flat panels of stainless steel and sharp angles.

The owner opened up the payload area for us, as well as doors so we could peer inside. We were surprised to find someone lurking behind the blacked out glass in the second row of seating.

Range is in the high 300-mile range for this electric vehicle, according to the guy. It’s considerably less in the winter.

Charging stations are a problem, too. But, the guy loves the truck.

It is fast, he said, which is understandable considering a reported 600 horsepower.

The steering wheel is more a yoke, The dash is mostly a large computer screen.

My wife was impressed when he demonstrated how the vehicle ride height could be lowered to allow easier access – we are of that age – or raised to an asburdly high level.

And, no, the man is not being harassed by others due to driving a Tesla.

Instead, he said the reactions are mostly thumbs-up.

I’ll give him a thumbs up for courteous interaction, something people on other side of the political aisle – the Tesla haters — should try.