Rebel Rebel

I love this quote:

"Here's to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The trouble-makers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They're not fond of rules, and they have no respect for the status-quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify, or vilify them. But the only thing you can't do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do."  ~Apple Computers

Now I am not sure I am one of the crazy ones.  I would like to be, but I feel pretty plain vanilla often times.  But I am inspired, once again, by my mother.  My mother is a little crazy.  I remember once when I was about 12 we were driving somewhere.  We were in dead stopped traffic.  The car next to us was playing music SO loudly we could not hear our own radio.  Both their windows and our windows were rolled up - and it was still crazy loud.  They were in a huge car, tinted windows, some sort of smoke rolling out a wee crack in of the car.  This was not a car to fuck with.   Well, that never stopped my mom.  All of a sudden, my mom (all 5'4" and practically no pounds of her) said she was going to tell them to turn it down.  I was horrified.  I think we were in Southeast DC or something at the time (i.e. not a place to go telling people to do things if you valued your life).  She got out, walked over to the car and knocked on the window.  Window rolls down, smoke rolls out, 400 pound guy whose face I could not see because it was buried deep within a hood looks at my mom.  "Yeah?"  "Well, excuse me but as much as I like the song you are playing I am unable to hear the song I am playing because your music is too loud.  I suggest you turn it down.  Thank you."

He looks at her, pulls back the hood, watches her walk back to our car and says "Sorry, Ma'am!" and turns down his radio. 

Now, this is not exactly what Apple was getting at, but darn it my mom is a rebel and I am proud.  She is not afraid.  She lives now with my dad in a development area in VA - one of those places where they have mowed down all the trees and taken away the grass/gardens to erect condos.  At night she goes and pilfers rocks from some quarry and has been building up the garden area across from her house.  She also goes out at night and secretly re-plants trees and shrubs.  Apparently the housing association would not be pleased - they like it like it is.  But not my mom.  She takes matters into her own hands.  I also remember her refusing to say certain parts of our church service because she did not believe that Christ really died and rose and will come again.  She thought it was a bunch of bunk so during that part she held her tongue.  This sounds innocuous but keep in mind, she was sitting up front for all to see and was the preacher's WIFE.  It was a big deal.  But she didn't care.  That's my mom.

I hope I have a bit of that in me.