My Father, and How He Blows My Mind Yet Again
My Dad just called.
He's getting newspapers together to take out to the country (there's a farm out there that has a covered wagon up by the road, and you put your old newspapers in the wagon because they use it for bedding for their animals), and he called to find out if I wanted him to save the newspapers from Tuesday and Wednesday, with the Inauguration stuff in it, "for posterity".
But you know what this means?
It means that he couldn't bear the idea of those newspapers sucking up pig shit--a concept that he would have probably relished about six months ago.
He may not be enamored enough--yet--of his new president to save those papers for HIMSELF, but he picked up the phone and called me, because he's willing to save the papers for my sake.
One of the things I heard the president say at the Young People's Ball the other night was that he heard, time and again on the campaign trail, older people saying, "You know, my daughter just won't stop telling me that I have to vote for you..." And he credited young people, a LOT, for the number of votes that he got from older people.
While I do not count myself amongst the throngs of "the young", I wonder--how much does my enthusiasm influence my parents? How much is he beginning to get that part of that enthusiasm has to do with all the good things I foresee this administration doing for him? For them?
No doughnut hole to worry about. No unfair drug prices. A medical plan that looks like the medical plan offered those fortunate enough to find themselves in a Senate seat or a cabinet position. It's right there on the Medicare page of whitehouse.gov--these are the goals of the new administration, and if he is able to get those things done, then that will improve the quality of my parents' lives about 2000%
And their welfare is no small reason for me to have been as excited as I have been for the last six months.
But you know, even if it isn't ME that influences him, I do not believe that my father is the kind of man who can listen to Rush Limbaugh tell his toadies (among whom my father counted himself a proud member till lately) to pray for the failure of the new president, and have that sit well in his heart. For all his conservatism and his fundamentalist foundation, I do believe that that would be a prayer that would stick in his throat.
Because for all that he got caught up in the bullshit of the Bush mindset, he is not an evil man, and I cannot see him wishing ill on anyone, or supporting anyone who does.
And on top of that, he's not stupid, and he's not prepared to throw in with the suicide bomber philosophy that would aim for the downfall of the president, endangering the state of the country in the process.
So...if my Dad is still listening to Rush, I think that my Dad is beginning to see just what shade of underwear the emperor's wearing.
Keep talking, Rush.
I need your help.
He's getting newspapers together to take out to the country (there's a farm out there that has a covered wagon up by the road, and you put your old newspapers in the wagon because they use it for bedding for their animals), and he called to find out if I wanted him to save the newspapers from Tuesday and Wednesday, with the Inauguration stuff in it, "for posterity".
But you know what this means?
It means that he couldn't bear the idea of those newspapers sucking up pig shit--a concept that he would have probably relished about six months ago.
He may not be enamored enough--yet--of his new president to save those papers for HIMSELF, but he picked up the phone and called me, because he's willing to save the papers for my sake.
One of the things I heard the president say at the Young People's Ball the other night was that he heard, time and again on the campaign trail, older people saying, "You know, my daughter just won't stop telling me that I have to vote for you..." And he credited young people, a LOT, for the number of votes that he got from older people.
While I do not count myself amongst the throngs of "the young", I wonder--how much does my enthusiasm influence my parents? How much is he beginning to get that part of that enthusiasm has to do with all the good things I foresee this administration doing for him? For them?
No doughnut hole to worry about. No unfair drug prices. A medical plan that looks like the medical plan offered those fortunate enough to find themselves in a Senate seat or a cabinet position. It's right there on the Medicare page of whitehouse.gov--these are the goals of the new administration, and if he is able to get those things done, then that will improve the quality of my parents' lives about 2000%
And their welfare is no small reason for me to have been as excited as I have been for the last six months.
But you know, even if it isn't ME that influences him, I do not believe that my father is the kind of man who can listen to Rush Limbaugh tell his toadies (among whom my father counted himself a proud member till lately) to pray for the failure of the new president, and have that sit well in his heart. For all his conservatism and his fundamentalist foundation, I do believe that that would be a prayer that would stick in his throat.
Because for all that he got caught up in the bullshit of the Bush mindset, he is not an evil man, and I cannot see him wishing ill on anyone, or supporting anyone who does.
And on top of that, he's not stupid, and he's not prepared to throw in with the suicide bomber philosophy that would aim for the downfall of the president, endangering the state of the country in the process.
So...if my Dad is still listening to Rush, I think that my Dad is beginning to see just what shade of underwear the emperor's wearing.
Keep talking, Rush.
I need your help.