Cripes, you guys. If I had known that a $150,000 clothing allowance came with the job of Republican Vice Presidential Candidate I might have tried to muscle my way onto McCain's short list myself. Given the apparent rigours of the vetting process Governor Palin underwent to be picked for the number two spot on the GOP ticket, I could have been a serious contender. With my background as a school bus driver and rural mail carrier I have solid experience and an exemplary record in government at both the local and national levels. As to foreign policy credentials: I may not be able to see Russia from my back porch but nobody can downplay the importance of the fact that I have fried doughnuts in grease.
Now I can't claim that I know how to win wars or that I know how to clean up "Worshington" but, my friends, I can tell you this: right here, in the richest country on earth, fully 30% of all middle and working class males are walking around with worn elastic in their underwear. And while $150k could go a considerable way to rectify this travesty, let's face it, I could not spend that amount of money on clothes in a lifetime, with or without accessories.
Not long ago I was looking at a shoebox full of old snapshots with my children--one in high school, one in college, and one post-collegiate--when all the kids started to laugh at a picture of me and my oldest daughter when she was about 7 years old. When it became clear to them that I was flummoxed by their amusement they pointed out that the shirt I was wearing in the photograph taken some two decades past was the same one I currently had on. I still didn't get the joke.
Okay, so I'm no clothes horse. Perhaps my slovenliness tends to the extreme but if you saw me on the street I would look like an ordinary citizen. I own one nice suit. It's about ten years old and may even have been dry cleaned once, I'm not sure. I can go to a wedding, a funeral, or a graduation ceremony without feeling self-conscious or embarrassing the celebrants thereof, at least not because of my attire.
All seriousness aside, I suppose if you're a politician looking for votes it makes sense to look your best. But cripes, you guys. If most people could pay off their mortgages and send a child to college with the passel you have for a clothing allowance designed just to get you through the campaign it should occur to you that something is amiss. If you are going to pay $400 for a haircut or $700 for designer eyeglass frames or $300,000 for an outfit to wear to the convention then please stop telling us that the terrorists hate us for our freedoms.
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Monday, October 20, 2008
Poultry, of a Vernal Nature.
Cripes, you guys. I'm no spring chicken. I still have my original teeth but I am old enough to be familiar with that expression about the henhouse. I am old enough to have seriously considered dodging the draft back during the days of gas wars. But I don't feel old, usually. It's just that every now and then the facts of the matter sneak up on a guy.
I have a new computer, a laptop with a wider screen than the ones I have outlived. I noticed today when I opened it up that the darkened screen reflects my image from my shoulders to my waist. That part of me doesn't look the same as it did back in the day when I used to tell the attendant to "give me a dollar's worth of regular." Some of us get thicker in the middle. Some of us get thinner on top. All of us get older--at least for a short time.
I am older than everybody who is playing on the field in the Major League Baseball Playoffs, including the umpires. I am older than the teachers who have my kids in their classes. I am invisible to young women. Alas, I must now come to grips with another abrupt reality: for the first I am about to cast my vote for a presidential candidate who is younger than me.
(The guy who I am not voting for is more years older than me than the guy who I am voting for is years younger than me. That guy is practically a dinosaur. They were the species that, according to his running mate, were running around five or six thousand years ago when even the earth was young. They had very small brains and became extinct. But, I digress).
Now, here's the good news: I like getting old. In almost every way getting older has led me to a better life, at least so far. Time has been a good friend to me. I owe it all to time. Everything I have. Every thing I am. Everything I will ever be.
Guys like me need a younger president. We need someone who is smarter than us, elite. We need someone who doesn't look at the world through such a small knothole as we do, someone who hasn't succumbed to cynicism, someone who hasn't given up on the idea of justice, someone who still knows the power of imagination.
Young people need this guy, too. They need him a lot more than we do. They need him more than they need us. They have so much time ahead of them. The last thing they need is an aging bullshitter who tries to scare them. Anybody who is 72 years old and still makes air quotation marks scares me.
That old guy has given a lot to this country. He deserves to spend some time fishing. It could make his life a lot better--and a lot of other lives,too.
I have a new computer, a laptop with a wider screen than the ones I have outlived. I noticed today when I opened it up that the darkened screen reflects my image from my shoulders to my waist. That part of me doesn't look the same as it did back in the day when I used to tell the attendant to "give me a dollar's worth of regular." Some of us get thicker in the middle. Some of us get thinner on top. All of us get older--at least for a short time.
I am older than everybody who is playing on the field in the Major League Baseball Playoffs, including the umpires. I am older than the teachers who have my kids in their classes. I am invisible to young women. Alas, I must now come to grips with another abrupt reality: for the first I am about to cast my vote for a presidential candidate who is younger than me.
(The guy who I am not voting for is more years older than me than the guy who I am voting for is years younger than me. That guy is practically a dinosaur. They were the species that, according to his running mate, were running around five or six thousand years ago when even the earth was young. They had very small brains and became extinct. But, I digress).
Now, here's the good news: I like getting old. In almost every way getting older has led me to a better life, at least so far. Time has been a good friend to me. I owe it all to time. Everything I have. Every thing I am. Everything I will ever be.
Guys like me need a younger president. We need someone who is smarter than us, elite. We need someone who doesn't look at the world through such a small knothole as we do, someone who hasn't succumbed to cynicism, someone who hasn't given up on the idea of justice, someone who still knows the power of imagination.
Young people need this guy, too. They need him a lot more than we do. They need him more than they need us. They have so much time ahead of them. The last thing they need is an aging bullshitter who tries to scare them. Anybody who is 72 years old and still makes air quotation marks scares me.
That old guy has given a lot to this country. He deserves to spend some time fishing. It could make his life a lot better--and a lot of other lives,too.
Sunday, October 19, 2008
(True) Fish Story
Cripes, you guys. I was ready to give up.
After four hours I had caught one tiny perch, grown hungry, gotten pretty damp, battled winds, and become increasingly frustrated with my lack of luck and the growing pain in my right shoulder. For the last half hour I had been saying, "One last cast."
I decided to troll along the rocks beneath the dike as far as the Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railroad bridge where the Trempealeau River empties into the big water, about a hundred yards or so. Then I would hang it up for the day, land the boat, and go home and watch the baseball playoff games. It looked like the drizzle was about to turn into a bona fide rainstorm anyway.
When I caught the little sunfish there was practically no resistance on my line; it could have just been weeds. I killed the motor and reeled a little bit before it was clear there was even a fish on. I paused in a stoop to rearrange stuff on the floor of the boat and when I straightened to stand up my little sunfish seemed a lot bigger.
The fish made a run and the drag was suddenly screaming. For several minutes I battled the angry critter. Three more times I let the fish run before I finally worked him in close enough to the surface to see a big northern with a sunfish sideways in his mouth--the head out one side and the tail out the other. It looked like he was eating a sandwich.
When I finally pulled him close to the boat, the two fish had become separated. The leading treble hook of the Sonic lure was in the mouth of the sunny and the and trailing hook was in the side of the big slimer's mouth. He was pretty-well worn out. I held him alongside the boat and kept him horizontal in the water, just like a real fisherman had taught me to handle these big hogs a few summers ago up in Northern Ontario. As I reached down to get a hand inside the back of his gill the fish gave a violent toss and disappeared into the deep. I was left with a bloodied sunfish and a slightly broken heart.
I fished for two more hours. I'll probably fish for a long time before something like that happens again. Others have told me of similar experiences. It was an amazing thing to witness. I've caught a lot of northerns this summer but I sure wish I would have gotten that one.
After four hours I had caught one tiny perch, grown hungry, gotten pretty damp, battled winds, and become increasingly frustrated with my lack of luck and the growing pain in my right shoulder. For the last half hour I had been saying, "One last cast."
I decided to troll along the rocks beneath the dike as far as the Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railroad bridge where the Trempealeau River empties into the big water, about a hundred yards or so. Then I would hang it up for the day, land the boat, and go home and watch the baseball playoff games. It looked like the drizzle was about to turn into a bona fide rainstorm anyway.
When I caught the little sunfish there was practically no resistance on my line; it could have just been weeds. I killed the motor and reeled a little bit before it was clear there was even a fish on. I paused in a stoop to rearrange stuff on the floor of the boat and when I straightened to stand up my little sunfish seemed a lot bigger.
The fish made a run and the drag was suddenly screaming. For several minutes I battled the angry critter. Three more times I let the fish run before I finally worked him in close enough to the surface to see a big northern with a sunfish sideways in his mouth--the head out one side and the tail out the other. It looked like he was eating a sandwich.
When I finally pulled him close to the boat, the two fish had become separated. The leading treble hook of the Sonic lure was in the mouth of the sunny and the and trailing hook was in the side of the big slimer's mouth. He was pretty-well worn out. I held him alongside the boat and kept him horizontal in the water, just like a real fisherman had taught me to handle these big hogs a few summers ago up in Northern Ontario. As I reached down to get a hand inside the back of his gill the fish gave a violent toss and disappeared into the deep. I was left with a bloodied sunfish and a slightly broken heart.
I fished for two more hours. I'll probably fish for a long time before something like that happens again. Others have told me of similar experiences. It was an amazing thing to witness. I've caught a lot of northerns this summer but I sure wish I would have gotten that one.
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