I was driving down the Pennsylvania turnpike today and noticed a new roadside display. Someone painted a great big rock red, white and blue- highlighted with the word "FREEDOM" in great big letters. The star spangled boulder was surrounded by several U.S. flags waving in the breeze churned up by passing All-American tractor-trailers. 
To be honest- I thought it was kind of cool- sort of a patriotic salute to all of us drivers who were at that very moment exercising our God-given right to break the speed limit at ludicrously high rates of velocity. But then I wondered: does the anonymous rock painter really have the FREEDOM to paint up a rock on a public road- a rock that's owned collectively by all of us tax paying citizens? That got me to thinking about old Judge Tams- the father of a very good friend from home. Judge Tams used to tell us that the FREEDOM to swing our arms ended at the tip of his nose. I always thought that made a lot of sense. But I can't figure out how to apply that analogy to a chunk of granite soaked in Sherwin Williams hi-gloss. Janice Joplin famously sang about FREEDOM being nothing left to lose. The FREEDOM trail leads through Boston's historical sites. But that's a long way from mile marker 113 on the PA pike. And even farther from the story I was thinking about. Judge Tams was a bit of a free thinker and somewhat ahead of the times. If I remember correctly, he once settled an ugly divorce case by awarding custody of the kids to the father. This was years ago when mother's were almost always given custody. 
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