Partisan Politics

Greetings cats and kittens. We’re just glad to be here. For Friday Letter #65, read on!

Partisan politics

Once upon a time, I was a registered Democrat.

This seems reasonable, considering that my parents were Democrats. About half of my grandparents were Democrats. The other half read Time Magazine and voted for Ike.

For a short while in his long and varied working career, Dad was a coal miner, and you don’t work in the mines without acquiring a union orientation. Even today, this means you naturally gravitate to the Democrats.

Before I could vote, I liked Estes Kefauver and (you had to be 21 back then) I would have voted for JFK. I liked his optimism, his electric persona, his relative youth, his verve. And he was a Democrat.

Barry Goldwater scared the bejabbers out of me, so I voted for Lyndon. In his own blustery way, Lyndon was heroic, especially in using his moxie to put civil rights ideas into use.

But I never again voted for a Democrat. It was Lyndon’s inability to resolve the Vietnam Conflict that sent me off. He had promised he would end JFK’s ill-begotten war.

But did I leave the party? As one wag put it years ago, no. The party left me.

In my memory, one of the most notable departures from the Democratic Party was that of Perry Swisher.

Perry was a newspaperman first and foremost; almost as an afterthought he ran for the House of Representatives in Idaho on the Democratic ticket.

He won, and he served his constituency well. (His constituency was pretty narrow and small, made up of non-Mormon voters in Eastern Idaho.)

As time went on, Perry’s views remained constant but the platform of the Democrats changed. It became obvious that something had to be done.

Against an incredible variety of pressures, Perry became a Republican – the party of choice of the powerfully predominant Mormons.

We all found we had more in common with the LDS cult than we were eager to admit. It worked for Perry – though I doubt he ever knew how well it worked.

This awesome circumstance enabled me to write perhaps the best headline of my career in newspapers. In huge type, I wrote: Perry Switcher

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The times they are a changin’, as the times were doing when Ben Nighthorse Campbell became a U.S. Representative from Colorado.

The Colorado Democratic Party worked hard to elect Mr. Campbell. Mr. Campbell worked hard for his constituents.

Once in office however, Harley-riding Ben began to see that his true sentiments lay more in the Republican party. He pulled a Swisher.

Hence, I gave him his biker name: Ben Midstream Campbell. (As in, he changed his Nighthorse in mid-stream. Get it?)

Fact is, I live in a world that has gone far beyond me. If I had remained a Democrat, I would be a member of a party that has gone far beyond me.

One very serious example: Abortion.

Here are some abortion statistics worldwide: Approximately 42 Million per year and approximately 115,000 per day.

In the U.S. there are 1.37 Million abortions per year (1996). There are approximately 3,700 abortions daily.

As a Democrat, I would be constrained to support these millions of atrocities, I would have to pledge to support the invisible war on babies.

Can’t do it. I can’t support even one abortion. Several of my grandchildren have died this way. They were murdered before they even had the chance to be born.

The party went beyond me. How anybody can vote Democratic these days is beyond me.

For confirmation of my statistics and other shocking facts about abortion, start at this address and go to the second:

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_abortions_take_place_a_day

http://www.mrdata.net/books/9reasons.htm

The Control

You know what the contemporary meaning is. “The Control” is the device used to “control” the television set.

As a male, it’s hard for me to be without “The Control.” Women just don’t have it in their genetic makeup to change the channel often enough. They make you wait through commercials. They make you wait through opera programs. So it’s better if the man has The Control.

But in the 15 years since we quit watching TV, I have realized what’s even more important than “The Control.”

Success. Success is even more important than ‘’The Control.” Success is every bit as easily lost as the Control. But you can’t recover success by looking between the cushions on the davenport.

So it’s best not to boast – either about having The Control or having Success. Just keep still, guys.

Unwilling angel

Dad was an angel to me in many ways, not just the following two examples. But they stand out.

I had just returned from the rose festival in Canon City, where I had participated in marching band – when I wasn’t scouting girls.

I had not slept in many hours. It was 1959, and I had already written a letter to a girl I had met in Canon City who was from Floydada, Texas. Or was it Cushing, Oklahoma.

Excited and exhausted, I turned my big Buick left in front of a woman driving a Rambler. The post office was one block away, but the collision interrupted my errand.

Dad, driving his “Blue Balloon” International work van, was first on the scene.

Unwilling angel. I’m sure Dad would rather have been almost anywhere else. But there he was, situated on the globe by fate, picking up after his 17-year-old son’s dumb mistake.

But he bore up under it. He was not judgmental, not angry, not punitive. He was just an angel.

Fast forward to 1982. I was headed to work after attending a family thing in Rollinsville. Highway 72 is treacherous any time of year, any time of day.

I got the motorcycle too close to the center line in a curve. Sand had gathered in the center. Bang. Into the guardrail I went, just that quick.

Guess who got to come along. Next. Right after me. Dad, of course. First on the scene.

He helped me load the broken motorcycle and take the incriminating evidence away from the highway. Then he took me to the hospital in Brighton. Ouch. I was 40 at the time. I won’t forget Dad’s patience and compassion for me. He was my angel.

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Word of the week: Pulchritude. Latin once again. From pulchritudo, from pulcher, physical beauty. Surprise your friends with the wonderful adjective “pulchritudinous.” You can say, “Wow, look at that woman. She is positively pulchritudinous.” I like it, partly because it sounds so much worse than it is.

Next week’s word: Eventer.

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