May 7
A statue. In a roundabout. Forgotten in front of a building that turns its back to downtown.
I wandered out to visit my ancestor by marriage. Andrew Jackson. Our seventh President.
Old Hickory.
We all have our first brush with history, that person or event we recall from our earliest days of school. My first vivid memory of history isn't the Pilgrims or Christopher Columbus or George Washington.
It's third grade history and Andrew Jackson.
And, speaking of New York Magazine...........
I live in South Carolina. Home of the first shot fired in the American Civil War. Where our state house hoisted the Confederate flag on its dome until a few short years ago. Where one of our state legislators called our current governor a 'rag head.' Where another state legislator called our President a liar to his face.
Nov 7
Being in love with someone who disagrees with some of your most fundamental preferences makes for a very broadening life; certainly on this day as much as any other, both Andra and I (MTM) feel a grave responsibility to live up to our hope that the rest of our country can manage to forge the kind of bipartisanship that she and I have committed the rest of our lives to.
Fundamental to our happy existence is learning how to have a depth of compassion for the pain of your opposite when your first instinct is to breathe a sigh of relief for your own good fortune. Especially when you find yourself at the precipice, on the edge of tragedy.
So it has been these last few days.
It all started on Saturday with a trip to Costco. As we shopped the broad aisles of that castle of capitalism, winding our way between boxes of bon bons and towers of toilet tissue, we came upon a bipartisan bonanza we could both agree on: a colossal coupon-less price cut on two products that stoked our particular passions–La Vieille Ferme for my Red wife, and Riondo Prosecco for my own White self. Yes, we somehow have managed a marriage detente even though we have exactly opposite opinions on wine.
Compromise. Such a profound concept, and mutually beneficial to boot. Of course we bought six bottles of Red and six bottles of White! After congratulating each other on our magnanimity, we completed our shopping and stuffed the stuff into the boot of Miss Mini.
Like Santa’s sleigh on Christmas Eve, Miss Mini was bulging with booty. Arriving in the parking garage at Cool Blow, we worked together to load it all up into the collective shopping cart to wheel it up to the condo. And that’s when disaster struck…
Yes, the fully loaded shopping cart went all Christine on us, careening towards the curb, and without looking back, took a half-gainer off the edge. We both watched as our bipartisan bottles floated in mid-air before crashing to the concrete. Like the crime scene it was, Red liquid quickly spread out over the surface, a giant stain waiting to be outlined in chalk. It was a landslide: every bottle of Red lay vanquished before us. The Whites did not escape unscathed, but survived in a spewing spray of sparkling wine; though the bottles were intact, the bubbly was blowing its bubbles.
Tempting it might have been for Andra to wallow in the lost Reds, and tempting it was to gloat over the survival of the Whites. But for the good of our marriage and as an example to our country, our response was unspoken and spontaneous: We spent the weekend squeezing every last drop of enjoyment from the dregs of our disaster, savoring the sparkling together, toasting to a better day when the rest of our country can manage to find our common ground.
Nov 6
Dwight D Eisenhower finished his Presidential run in the early days of 1961. A military hero, he is consistently ranked among the top 10 Presidents of the United States by people with more research ability than me.
On the eve of his leaving Presidential office, he dropped a bomb on America. Though he spent a good swath of his adult life in the military, his military-industrial complex speech is among his greatest, his most poignant, because it likely cost him dearly to give it. You can read the complete transcript here.
I’m not writing a post today about the Military-Industrial Complex. We Americans have lost that war. Our generation’s rising specter is the Campaign-Daisy Chain Complex, thanks in part to the rulings surrounding Citizens United (AKA Corporations are people.)
As of this writing, OpenSecrets.org reports that the amount of money spent on this election cycle is $5.8 billion for the 2012 Presidential and Congressional elections, $2.5 billion for the Presidential election alone. Close to $800 million on paid television advertisements in key battleground states, almost all of them negative, according to the Washington Post. Spending per voter has jumped from $18 per in 2000 to $42 per in 2012.
Every decision we as Americans make about what is an important expenditure is a decision not to spend money elsewhere. Let me say that again: EVERY DECISION WE AS AMERICANS MAKE ABOUT AN IMPORTANT EXPENDITURE IS A DECISION NOT TO SPEND MONEY ELSEWHERE.
What could almost $6 billion have given us, if we inserted it into President Eisenhower’s speech?
In the Campaign Daisy Complex, the expectation is that every dollar dropped on a candidate will be repaid as legislative largesse for a lobbyist or a leveraged interest, thus begetting more campaign cash, in a cycle as insidiously patriotic as the menace that Eisenhower identified.
However this election turns out, I leave you with some final words from President Eisenhower’s speech. They are worth noting, given what we as Americans have allowed to permeate our political process.
“Good judgment seeks balance and progress; lack of it eventually finds imbalance and frustration.”
Sep 20
August. A Saturday. It is 6am. Or thereabouts. I sowed my story, fought for my side. Even wrote some of the words that ended up in the newspapers. In the aftermath, I fled.
Adventure. Its prospect has always been my nourishment. The thing that made me something more than a hollow man. Adventure pours into that void. Fills it, until it overflows.
And so, I sit here. On this bluff, at sunrise. Overlooking dual runs of water. Joined, like two bodies doing the business. I seek the thrill, that sweet adrenaline that sets my mind aright. In the pink light on my face. In the sound of the river. In the music of birds and the rustling of leaves.
Those things don’t take me back to my pinnacle. My apex. Not today.
No.
They take me back to her.
How her legs pumped when she ran, screaming with laughter, along the bank of a creek. Her bare feet like aged leather. A face, unadorned, that made me quicken. She outran me. Every time. At the last second, she let me catch her. Fold her into my embrace. The nearest thing to love I ever knew.
So much like me. An adventurer, through and through. She took the best part of me with her when she died. And, I bide my time with corpse revivers. Trying to make sense of a life that shouldn’t be mine.
***
Reader note:
A corpse reviver was a staple cocktail in the 1930′s. Recent mixology has revived such classics. Here’s a recipe, in case you want to give it a try. Combine all ingredients in a shaker with ice, except for lemon peel. Shake and strain into a martini glass. Garnish with lemon peel.
1 ounce gin
1 ounce cocchi americano
1 ounce fresh lemon juice
1 ounce Cointreau
Dash of absinthe
Shave of lemon peel
This post is part of the series Death Becomes Me. It is a series of fiction. If this is your first visit to the series, please click here to read the first installment, go here for the second, go here for the third, click here for the fourth, go here for the fifth, click here for the sixth and go here for the seventh.
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