LBJ: Still greasing the wheels of social intercourse and conscience, beyond the grave
Praise be, intelligent life still exists among us. It's truly something to give thanks for on this dry, overcast Sunday - on this our day of rest, on this our day of doing absolutely sweet fuck-all. We have food on the table, clean water, overtime for working Martin Luther King, Jr. Day tomorrow, and sweet little 84-year-old Democrat women who haven't lost the faith just yet.
My eyes have seen the glory.
She came to me not in a dream, but to my father and step-mother's garage sale. All in all, a lovely day to be outdoors - sunny and mild, not too breezy, but one of those days when the sky's all blue with feathery clouds and everybody's generally in a good mood, despite a light hangover and the fact that Texas has now officially joined California on the list of states who share either one of two seasons: brown or green.
Who knew that some dinky old LBJ commemorative plaque would still resound so loudly today - for a precious little old Democrat lady from my Dad's neighborhood and me? Hell, I'm not sure if you would even call this a plaque - my mother used to have a couple of these same doohickies in our kitchen at the old place, only with cheesy illustrations of marjoram and sage, or Paris and Rome, or what have you. These days, you'd probably see tons of them in the kitchen section of your local Goodwill or Salvation Army, and if you had a 70's childhood, you'd recognize 'em instantly - the little tile paintings set in some kind of black, faux-wrought iron frame. Definitely a crap product of their time, only a few steps above macrame and sand paintings.
This LBJ plaque took me right back to my childhood, though - the small, circular tile with a painted illustration of ol' Lyndon Baines Johnson himself, husband of the inimitable Lady Bird, former Valley schoolteacher and Beagle lover. The big mystery was how my step-mom, a darling woman but a staunch you-know-what, came to have this in the first place.
Turns out that it actually used to belong to her mother, a proud Baptist woman from Mississippi who even up to her death at 95 would still give you the evil eye for desecrating the family table with glasses of demon table wine during holiday dinners. A sharp woman, but one I never had pegged as a Democrat, especially when her brother (and my step-mom's uncle) always seemed to have something shitty to say about Bill Clinton during my step-mother's lavish feasts, whenever the conversation drifted into politics - and several years after he'd been out of office, too.
It didn't take long to come up with a few of theories on the plaque's ownership, one being that ol' Nyna was once a god-fearin' Mississippi yellow-dog Democrat - up until the time of the Civil Rights movement, probably. Perhaps she'd secretly been pulling the lever for the Democrats the whole time. Or maybe the plaque had once been part of a set, and poor LBJ somehow got lost along the way.
Being cuckoo for kitsch, I wanted to set it aside for myself but decided to leave it out on the table, just to see if anyone would make any snarky comments. No one took any notice of ol' LBJ until this these two women pulled up in a Toyota Camry. They were remarkably spry, in their late 70's or early 80's, dressed in jeans and sneakers and enjoying the day out, combing the garage sales. We exchanged plesantries about the weather and other banalities as they perused the card tables crowded with Tom Collins glasses and other tacky trinkets, and my nose was buried in the Startle-Gram when I heard one of them exclaim, "LBJ! Oh, that's wonderful! Is this a Democrat house?"
"No, ma'am, I wish," I answered.
"Well, I'm 84 and I've always voted Democrat," she confided, proceeding to tell me about her prized print of some famous FDR portrait and how she'd had copies made at Kinko's for her friends. I told her I wanted to find out more about being a delegate - without getting into my bitter side-rant about how the current crop of Fraidy-Crats need to get their John Murtha on and grow some balls already so I can stop being pissed off at them - and she said, "Please do that, honey. People your age really should be looking out for themselves at this point, and they're not. It's frightening to watch."
And there you have it. Words from the wise, my people. A touch of Cassandra, maybe, only devoid of any drama or doom. Just a friendly warning, one that left me a little dumbfounded.
I opened my mouth to reply, but she had another warning for me. "By the time you're my age, with the way things are now, Social Security won't exist, and you can kiss Medicaid good-bye, too."
While all this has certainly crossed my mind before, hearing it from someone who's seen nearly a century of American history unfold before her very own eyes made my stomach do a flip-flop right there, as thoughts of my own piddling 401K earnings and horror stories of friends' grandparents living on $300 a month danced through my head.
As I bagged up her purchases and cashed her out, she continued. "You just be sure to watch out for your friends, you hear? Promise me you'll keep on voting, because the future's not looking good for you and your friends right now."
"Count on it," I told her.
And in the driveway, over her shoulder, she turned to me again, fingers crossed.
Promise me, honey!"
No worries here, ma'am.
My eyes have seen the glory.
She came to me not in a dream, but to my father and step-mother's garage sale. All in all, a lovely day to be outdoors - sunny and mild, not too breezy, but one of those days when the sky's all blue with feathery clouds and everybody's generally in a good mood, despite a light hangover and the fact that Texas has now officially joined California on the list of states who share either one of two seasons: brown or green.
Who knew that some dinky old LBJ commemorative plaque would still resound so loudly today - for a precious little old Democrat lady from my Dad's neighborhood and me? Hell, I'm not sure if you would even call this a plaque - my mother used to have a couple of these same doohickies in our kitchen at the old place, only with cheesy illustrations of marjoram and sage, or Paris and Rome, or what have you. These days, you'd probably see tons of them in the kitchen section of your local Goodwill or Salvation Army, and if you had a 70's childhood, you'd recognize 'em instantly - the little tile paintings set in some kind of black, faux-wrought iron frame. Definitely a crap product of their time, only a few steps above macrame and sand paintings.
This LBJ plaque took me right back to my childhood, though - the small, circular tile with a painted illustration of ol' Lyndon Baines Johnson himself, husband of the inimitable Lady Bird, former Valley schoolteacher and Beagle lover. The big mystery was how my step-mom, a darling woman but a staunch you-know-what, came to have this in the first place.
Turns out that it actually used to belong to her mother, a proud Baptist woman from Mississippi who even up to her death at 95 would still give you the evil eye for desecrating the family table with glasses of demon table wine during holiday dinners. A sharp woman, but one I never had pegged as a Democrat, especially when her brother (and my step-mom's uncle) always seemed to have something shitty to say about Bill Clinton during my step-mother's lavish feasts, whenever the conversation drifted into politics - and several years after he'd been out of office, too.
It didn't take long to come up with a few of theories on the plaque's ownership, one being that ol' Nyna was once a god-fearin' Mississippi yellow-dog Democrat - up until the time of the Civil Rights movement, probably. Perhaps she'd secretly been pulling the lever for the Democrats the whole time. Or maybe the plaque had once been part of a set, and poor LBJ somehow got lost along the way.
Being cuckoo for kitsch, I wanted to set it aside for myself but decided to leave it out on the table, just to see if anyone would make any snarky comments. No one took any notice of ol' LBJ until this these two women pulled up in a Toyota Camry. They were remarkably spry, in their late 70's or early 80's, dressed in jeans and sneakers and enjoying the day out, combing the garage sales. We exchanged plesantries about the weather and other banalities as they perused the card tables crowded with Tom Collins glasses and other tacky trinkets, and my nose was buried in the Startle-Gram when I heard one of them exclaim, "LBJ! Oh, that's wonderful! Is this a Democrat house?"
"No, ma'am, I wish," I answered.
"Well, I'm 84 and I've always voted Democrat," she confided, proceeding to tell me about her prized print of some famous FDR portrait and how she'd had copies made at Kinko's for her friends. I told her I wanted to find out more about being a delegate - without getting into my bitter side-rant about how the current crop of Fraidy-Crats need to get their John Murtha on and grow some balls already so I can stop being pissed off at them - and she said, "Please do that, honey. People your age really should be looking out for themselves at this point, and they're not. It's frightening to watch."
And there you have it. Words from the wise, my people. A touch of Cassandra, maybe, only devoid of any drama or doom. Just a friendly warning, one that left me a little dumbfounded.
I opened my mouth to reply, but she had another warning for me. "By the time you're my age, with the way things are now, Social Security won't exist, and you can kiss Medicaid good-bye, too."
While all this has certainly crossed my mind before, hearing it from someone who's seen nearly a century of American history unfold before her very own eyes made my stomach do a flip-flop right there, as thoughts of my own piddling 401K earnings and horror stories of friends' grandparents living on $300 a month danced through my head.
As I bagged up her purchases and cashed her out, she continued. "You just be sure to watch out for your friends, you hear? Promise me you'll keep on voting, because the future's not looking good for you and your friends right now."
"Count on it," I told her.
And in the driveway, over her shoulder, she turned to me again, fingers crossed.
Promise me, honey!"
No worries here, ma'am.
posted by No, You Can't Watch at 6:35 PM
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