When you run MnDOT, I suppose you are not just a highwayman. You are THE highwayman.
Which brings to mind of course the tradition of the British highwayman.
And with that MnDOT footing to stand on, picture El, the consultant, the lobbyist --- pictured now, as the highwayman.
There is this to be said:
Beyond the law....
The dangerous figure in the road at night...the dashing and romantic gentleman thief...the loner on the run for a crime he didn't commit...the righteous rebel who rises from obscurity to help the less fortunate-- highwaymen are some of the most beloved and universal of archetypal heroes--or anti-heroes--that we know. Literature and media both about with the light-fingered gentry and artful dodgers, footpads, desperados, and other dashing, dangerous and fascinating miscreants.
Highwaymen thrived in England in the seventeenth and eighteenth century, becoming legendary and romantic figures. Highwaymen were "as common as crows" from around 1650 to 1800, and in an age where travel was already hazardous due to the lack of decent roads, no one rode alone without fear of being robbed, and people often joined company or hired escorts. No wonder then that travellers often wrote their wills before they set out....
Well, that "joined company and hired escorts," perhaps that's more El's cohort and associate, James Norman, paired pistols and all as legend has it.
But you sit in the seat of running the highways, you are THE Highwayman. No two ways about that. Perhaps in a different way than "Swift Nick" Nevison, who rode to fame, with the Lord Mayor as his alibi.
The Wrestler's highwayman. WOW! Working the highways still. Consulting.
Which all brings to mind the problems Dem politicos have with the highwayman thing, not just El because of where he used to work, but back in Seattle, Christy and I watching CSPAN, the Clinton '90's, Speaker of the House, Tom Foley from the Spokane area at the House microphone. She says, "Did he just say that!" I said, "Yes, he did just say that." And we were right because William Safire in a June 13, 1993 New York Times Magazine item wrap-up which is still online confirmed:
STAND AND DELIVER
THE MOST ill-considered phrase uttered on the floor of the House of Representatives this year came from the Speaker himself.
Urging his fellow Democrats to support President Clinton's economic proposals, Speaker Tom Foley said, "This is the time to stand and deliver."
Presumably, the Speaker meant that the members must courageously stand up and be counted to deliver their votes. However, the phrase Stand and deliver! is the command of the highwayman holding up a horse-drawn coach. Its meaning was clear to every driver carrying valuable cargo: stand still and deliver up the gold and jewelry.
The phrase today still carries the connotation of mounted theft. It's not a locution a politician wants to apply to a representative's relations with the taxpayers.
The Tink. The Boss. Working on the highway laying down the blacktop
Working on the highway all day long I don't stop
Working on the highway blasting through the bedrock
Working on the highway
Working on the highway ...