“Joe Wilson yelled ‘You lie!’ at a president who didn’t. But fair or not, what I heard was an unspoken word in the air. You lie, boy.” —Maureen Dowd

Muntadar al-Zaidi, whose act propelled him to status of hero in the Arab World, has been released from prison. He has become a hero to many, not just by the Iraqi but across the Arab world, for what many saw as a fitting send-off for a deeply unpopular U.S. president saying: “This is a goodbye kiss from the Iraq people, dog. This is from the widows, the orphans and those who were killed in Iraq.”

Maureen Dowd’s thought of what Joe Wilson was really saying carries some weight, at least in my mind.

Last week I transported a “resident” back home to Virginia. Virginia, Minn. It was about a 300-mile trip and a beautiful day. We left at 8:30 a.m. on Friday and arrived in Virginia around 1:30 p.m. He brought with him a wonderful cane chair he had purchased at the Salvation Army. It was a beauty. He paid $2 for it.

After unloading his belongings and saying goodbye I started back with plans to stop in Duluth at the Canal Park bookstore.

Along the way up I saw the sign indicating Paul Wellstone’s marker coming up. Now I was passing it by for the second time and thought I can’t pass this by.

I turned around at the next crossing and drove back to the road going east. It was a ways down the road to the initial marker describing the story of that fateful day.

On the long walk to the crash site on the hard rock path covered with little agate like stones I thought back to the time Paul Wellstone came to Rochester to listen to Vietnam Veterans express their concerns.

The line was long, and the stories were tragic. I remember breaking down, telling my own story, and when it was over walking out of the school and a woman was standing there and came up and gave me a hug. I won’t forget that either. That was probably the only hug I received after coming home from Vietnam.

Finally, I arrived near the crash site informing me of what appeared to be the cause.  A wet grassy path led to the site of crash 2,000 feet ahead. I decided against the wet walk and returned to the van and headed toward Duluth accompanied with almost endless road repair.

I was greeted on the edge of Duluth with schools letting out and thick traffic. Finally, I made it down the hill, passing the place that was a brief honeymoon stop years ago. Now a church stands there. Then, it was on to Superior Avenue with its steady bumper-to-bumper traffic.

Eventually I was able to turn off Superior Street and cross over I-35 to Canal Street to browse the bookstore.

I parked in a parking lot of a hotel with signs warning your car would be towed if you didn’t have a sticker on it. I hustled over to the bookstore where I spent about five minutes before deciding it had lost its flavor, that and the fear of having the van towed.

Then it was onto a quick peek along rocky shoreline looking for small pieces of rust and weathered wood to no avail. It was also the first time in years we hadn’t spent time there as a family.

I then drove to Cloquet where I met up with my niece and her family and spent the night enjoying their company and the front porch bedroom.

Saturday I drove through the cities on the St. Paul side for fear of traffic on the Minneapolis side with Obama about to speak at the Target Center. His speech they thought would last about 20 minutes, but ran instead more than 40 minutes as many of you know.

He wrapped things up with his “fire up” story, “are you ready,” he acquired from an elderly lady he ran into at one of his rallies during one of his southern campaigns. It worked well with his supporters.

Last week my cousin and I listened to Obama’s educational challenge on the car radio outside of McDonald’s where we go to solve the world problems. That was worthwhile.

It’s too bad diverse political thinking can’t be more accommodated to one another. And now we have school board elections coming up.

I guess I’m hoping we’ll see some fresh faces.