I was talking to my mother the other day and she informed me that President George W. Bush took Russian President Vladmir Putin for a ride in his pickup truck.

Of course, having been in Russia, I know that they are pickup-truck deprived. All that snow and ice and mostly just little box cars, shaped like Plymouth Reliants, to ride around in. Perhaps Bush was trying to share with the Russian the fun of four-wheeling. Then again, maybe he was trying to open up the Russian truck market for the U.S. automakers.

It's certainly a matter of some intense speculation. Pundits are gathering for nighttime news programs as we speak.

It doesn't seem to matter what you want to talk about, from the possibility of alien invasion to whether or not former President Ronald Reagan dyed his hair; a pundit will always know something about it.

I guess the Russians will resist our entry into their automobile market. If we ever get in, the Russian car companies are really in trouble. Their idea of technologically advanced cars are ones without pedals. Aerodynamic designs with smooth contours and low noise and wind resistance? Forget it. They just use straight sheet metal and flat glass that makes a Willis Jeep look like a marvel.

Only the upper crusty, like the President, have nice rides, like Mercedes-Benz limousines or BMW sportsters. Average Joe, or Plain Petr in Russian, would have a hard time getting anything at all to drive, let alone a ‘shapely' Volga dream cruiser.

At any rate, the very thought of Putin, a former KGB man, riding in a pickup truck with his arm out the window really strikes me as funny. Add a little barbecue sauce on his lapel and you've got a real screamer.

If we could only get Bush and Putin to get together around a woodstove in a backwoods store to chew tobacco and swap stories about the good old days, we might make real men out of them yet.

Heck, we could even get them to go out in the truck and cut the wood beforehand and then tape them as they proceeded to start the fire.

I shouldn't be making offhand remarks about cutting wood with my record, besides I have to respect the guy since he is the first public official on any level that I have ever seen use a chainsaw.

I am glad to see that I am not the only one who finds a good day in the woods to be a relaxing adventure.

As for Bush, I found the farm footage I saw earlier to be rather funny, since Secret Service agents were all over the place, along with television cameras and photographers. It was a real circus, if you ask me.

If I were president, I would do things a little differently. I might still cut a few sticks of wood for the White House and load it up on Air Force One to transfer to that Marine One helicopter and then dump on the back lawn, but I wouldn't have all those reporters around taking my picture. If they wanted to see me cut up wood, I'd make them help. That would thin them out a bit.

But I got to thinking, since the President is now cutting his own firewood, what is next? Will we see him mowing lawns around Washington in between cruising up and down the streets in the Capitol on a red, white and blue riding lawnmower with little flags on the front and a bullet-proof cart tagging along behind? Not only would it be practical as a mode of transportation, I can't think of a better way to shore up political alliances than mowing a fellow politician's yard, "Just to be neighborly." I can just see the Secret Service guys running along beside him as he made laps on his mower, them with their dark glasses and little ear phones, him with a look of determination and a plaid shirt.

With all the ‘down-home' stuff Bush is doing for us on television, maybe soon we'll see coon hounds on the White House lawn, beagles at Camp David and hunting rifles, stuffed animal heads and mounted fish in the oval office. I just hope he institutes Deer Hunting Day and Trout Fishing Day as national holidays while his popularity is still up so high. I'm with you, George.

For some reason, every time I think of Bush in the White House I want to watch some re-runs of the Beverly Hillbillies. Come to think of it, Granny ran for Possum Queen one time. So why couldn't Uncle Jed Clampett run for President? Uncle Jed would make an ideal candidate, what with his country wisdom and all that oil money. Maybe he could get Milburn Drysdale to be his vice president. That'd make C Span worth watching, wouldn't it?

It's gone beyond the realm of mere politics now. We Americans want entertainment.

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