Between the Bridges: Nothing New
I was chatting with a politically astute old-timer up at the Broad Channel VFW canteen over the weekend and the conversation turned to the current Democrat and Republican Primary races that have apparently captured the attention of the world. I mentioned that I was fed up with the negative campaigning and the abundance of outright falsehoods that were being bandied about by some of the candidates on both sides of the aisle. My friend looked at me as if I was daft and stated, “Nothing new here…when we were children our parents would tell us fairy tales, all of which began with, Once upon a time…now as adults the only fairly tales told us are from politicians who start their stories with If elected I promise…”
Be that as it may when I mentioned that I never thought I would live to see the Pope involve himself with American politics as he did when he recently implied that perhaps Donald Trump was not a Christian as he believed in building walls, not bridges, my friend simply chuckled and said, “Listen kiddo, the Pope and American politics are nothing new. Back in 1960 when Jack Kennedy, a Catholic, ran for President people were screaming that if Kennedy was elected he would simply be a puppet of the Vatican with Pope John XIII as the real power behind the presidency…you know, like the Wizard of Oz – pay no attention to the man with the red shoes and skull cap behind the curtain in the Oval Office.”
Our conversation then turned to the two current front runners in the Presidential race to which my friend opined…“This has got to be the most amusing Presidential race since 2000 when the hanging chads fiasco down in Florida had me rolling on the floor holding my sides in laughter! We’ve got Hillary Clinton, a 68-year-old woman, running for the democrats while struggling to stay two steps ahead of a federal indictment for her mishandling of classified emails and on the republican side we have Donald Trump, a 69-year-old businessman, whose foreign policy can best be summed up as…..’If you mess with the United States there will hell toupee!'”
The above notwithstanding, I advised my friend that the current state of politics in our country has me worried about our children as I would not want them to seek a political career because of all the related nonsense. My friend suggested I utilize a trick he learned back in Ireland. “Back in County Cork some years ago, Jack and Maureen were curious about what road in life their teenage son Mick would take, so one day they set a plan to find out. On the kitchen table they placed a Bible, representing a man of the cloth, a bottle of Irish Whiskey, representing the down and out, and a $20.00 bill, representing business. Jack and Maureen then hid in the pantry. Soon Mick walked into the kitchen and noticed the three articles on the table, in turn he examined the Bible, the whiskey and the money. He then looked around the room to see if anyone was watching and quickly put the Bible under his arm, picked up the bottle of whiskey and put the money in his pocket and left. Jack turned to Maureen and exclaimed, “Good God woman, the boy is going to become a politician!”
Broad Channel – why would anyone want to live anywhere else?
No comments:
Post a Comment