Ordinary People

This morning I was driving back towards I-90 from a very harried, albeit pleasant tour of a local farm and passed through Preston and by this sign, pinned to the netting holding a three-tierd rock wall in place:

SEIZE THE DAY 

ORDINARY PEOPLE DO EXTRAORDINARY THINGS!

With a petite exclamation mark, in case you didn't catch the grandeur of it all without punctuation.  Flanked on both sides by bright American flags, the message was decidedly patriotic.  It's a message I appreciate in a patriotic sense, certainly.  Normal guys don military gear and suddenly they are the amassadors of America, the only piece of the U. S. of A that many people will ever see or know (daunting thought, actually, now that I think about it).

The sign made me smile today because I've been reminded of how objective extraordinary can be.  I've been really into memoirs lately, mostly because I secretly would like to write one and need to be coaxed into it by others who have decided that a slice of their life is worth devoting hours and scrutiny to by themselves and by others.  In Cork Boat, a guy decides to buid a boat out of wine corks.  He ends up in a truly epic sail down the Douro river in Portugal, but the building of the boat is pretty epic in and of itself.  I'm partway through Bill Bryson's Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid, which, while lacking in any real cohesive story line, very clearly shouts that for kids just about everything is extraordinary.

Even Preston, a city which most people forget exists between Issaquah (the edge of civilization that is the Seattle Metro area) and North Bend (the edge of wilderness that is the Cascades), thinks it can be extraordinary.