Average Joe Buckeye Blitz cont. In Springfield, Ohio this morning I talked with John Polley, 18, a used tire shop manager. He walked with a limp and said his knee “was hurting bad from lifting sem-tires.” But he had no health insurance and was hesitant to get his knee checked. I told a Springfield newspaper reporter later this morning that in Grand Junction, Colorado we researched a hospital run by doctors, nurses, town people doing intakes, janitorial work, and so on… all on a volunteer basis — so people like John could get help. (It’s called the Marrilac Clinic.) Dayton’s Channel 7 News also arrived just as someone was scolding me about parking in a handicapped spot (by mistake). And you think Bush and Kerry are experiencing public relations problems… Springfield’s Paul Campbell thinks the country isn’t so much experiencing PR problems, as it is “business problems.” That is, he said, “if you had a business that was in as much debt as the U.S. Government, well…,” he threw up his hands. I then headed to South Vienna, Ohio where a guy on the street said to me: “Bravo! Fighting the big boys!” I then went to W. Jefferson where Michael Tyree, who owns a small flooring business, said he gets disconcerted at times with local people driving 40 miles round trip to Columbus to look for cheaper prices at Lowe’s. What people don’t factor into those low prices is: gas money, time wasted (that could be spent on family, community) and added pollution to the atmosphere. It was then onto Mechanicsburg, Ohio where I put up a flyer in the window of a Christian bookstore called: Heavenly Touch. And we’re hoping the campaign gets a ‘heavenly touch’ (read: loaves and fishes story) soon. But in the interum, I then drove to Urbana, Ohio where I was interviewed for the better part of an hour by a reporter there. I then went into the New Family Table Restaurant where I stumped with the customers and passed out flyers. In addition, I interviewed owner Brian Waller who said his employees consist of: his wife, step son, mother-in-law, neice… In working together, Brian said it has brought them closer together as a family — just like he used to feel with his brothers and sisters growing up on a small family farm in western Illinois. Note: In a recent Guest Column in The Advocate (Newark, Ohio), Kathleen Pipes wrote: “this year I will write in a candidate of my cholde, Mr. average Joe Schriner. And I urge you to do the same. I am voting to make a statement: “We want to take back our country.”‘