Saturday, July 05, 2008

The Fourth of July and memories of Jesse Helms





I have no idea of the name of the plant, and it doesn't go at all with my story, but I felt I needed a bit of color. I shot the photo earlier this week while hiking around Virginia City, Nevada.

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The fourth was a nice lazy day here in West Michigan. I didn’t do a whole lot. I wrote a blog post, put the new sidebar on my blog (thanks to Ed Abbey’s help), read some, and then headed into town to watch minor league baseball. There I had a traditional fourth of July dinner of hot dogs washed down with a Sundog amber ale (New Holland Brewery). Sorry, no apple pie, but I did have some strawberry shortcake. You can’t get any more American than baseball and hot dogs; unfortunately the West Michigan Whitecaps lost to the Fort Wayne Wizards, 8-7. After the game, there were fireworks. If there had been a few more fireworks in the game, maybe the Whitecaps would have won.


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The big news from yesterday was the death of Jesse Helms. As a kid, I remember listening to his angry diatribes on WRAL TV out of Raleigh whenever we’d visit my grandparents (luckily for us, WRAL’s signal didn’t make it to the coast). I know the man always maintained he wasn’t a racist, but if it walks and talks like a duck… At the risk of speaking ill of the dead, below is a story I wrote in a post titled “Suppose I’m just a Southern Democrat.” The post was written in 2005, when I had even fewer readers of this blog. It began with a review of the book Whistling Dixie, and went on about my take on Southern politics. The excerpt below has been cleaned up a bit; it’s my most vivid memory of discussing “Jesse.”

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During the run-up to the 1988 election year primaries, I hiked the Appalachian Trail. It was a great way to get away from it all and I missed all the news about who was in and out of the campaign during the summer of ’87. That was okay with me. For most of the summer, or at least for all but one day of it, I didn’t think about the elections. But there was that one day in New Hampshire (the state that hosts the first Presidential primary) when another hiker and I detoured down a paved road at the promise of good pancakes served with real maple syrup. The Thompson Maple Syrup Farm was just a half mile or so from the trail and they’d posted fliers to entice hikers. It sounded good and hikers are always hungry, so the two of us hiked to their roadside pancake house and ordered up a couple of stacks. As the proprietor fried the cakes, I read the framed news articles and stuff on the walls and quickly surmised that her husband had been governor of the state of New Hampshire. Trying to keep up the reputation that Southerners are friendly, I asked if her husband was still in politics.


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“Oh yeah,” she replied, “right now he’s out trying to jumpstart Paul Laxalt’s campaign.” (Laxalt had been Ronald Reagan's campaign manager and a Senator from Nevada.)


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“What,” I asked with a puzzled look, “Laxalt is running for President?”


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“Oh yeah,” she said and then asked accusatively, “Who are you for, George Bush?”


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Thinking back on this conversation with the vantage of hindsight, the ideal comeback could have been: “I’d be proud to vote for him if he had a vasectomy half-century earlier.” Instead, I just dug a deeper hole when I said, “I suppose if I had to vote Republican, I’d vote for Bush.”


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Then she asked me what I had against Laxalt. At the time, I’d never even been to Nevada, Laxalt’s home state (and now my home away from home). Nor did I know at that time that Paul Laxalt has a brother, Robert, who is a wonderful writer specializing in the Basque experience in the American West. So, having shot my mouth off, all I could think to say was, “He’s good friends with Jesse Helms. And Helm’s is an embarrassment to my home state.”


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“Oh,” she said with a deep breath, “we do differ.” She said this very slowly and deliberately, each word coming out for emphasis. “We are good friends with Jesse. My husband wanted him to run for President.”


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At this point, I realized I’d dug my hole a full six feet deep and if I didn’t shut up quickly it’d become my grave. So I let her run off her diatribe about what’s wrong with the world (which had something to do about there not being enough conservative Republicans) as I tried to eat my pancakes. This lady obviously hadn’t learned the philosophy that the customer is always right. I paid my bill, but I didn’t leave a tip. She’d already given me enough tips and I didn’t think she needed any more.


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Two more things about this experience: I’d hiked down to the pancake house with another hiker who was from New Hampshire. We’d meet on the trail that morning and through all of this, she sat in the booth across from me snickering. As we hiked back to the trail, she said she knew I was digging a hole for myself and didn’t know how to tell me to shut up. Secondly, as we were shouldering our packs on the porch, ready to head back toward the trail, a truck drove up and out jumped two men in suits. One was her husband, who introduced us to Laxalt. We shook his hand. Of course, Laxalt didn’t win the primary; I think he dropped out of the primary before I finished the trail. The 1988 election went to our current president’s father (for those of you who didn’t get my comment about a vasectomy).

19 comments:

  1. I caught the reference - and I'm with you on that one!! Jesse was persona non grata in my house, even though one of my neighbors was his doctor. Oddly enough, Jesse outlived that doctor by about 3 months, and a letter from Jesse and Dot was read at his funeral.

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  2. You know, what's funny about American political history in this century, is how the parties' images have shifted over time. My father left the Democratic party in the mid-sixties because of its failure to support Lyndon Johnson's Civil Rights initiatives, which would never have passed without the solidarity of the Republican minority in Congress.

    In '88, when Al Gore first ran for president, I remember my Dad saying how he remembered Al, Sr. taking Truman to task for integrating the military, and opposing Johnson. He was proud of our Missouri Democrats, Stu Symington and Tom Eagleton for supporting Johnson, but just could stay in the Demos because of 1965.

    Of course, in 1968, he couldn't vote for Nixon and went with Humphrey, but George Wallace split the Dems and gave Nixon the Whitehouse.

    Not good times.

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  3. Except for the loss of the Whitecaps, it sounded like a near perfect day. I enjoyed reading the pancakes and politics post.

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  4. Kenju, Jesse was an icon in NC, it seemed people either couldn't stand him or loved him--he never won by a large margin.

    Karen, it was fun, I'm loving the cooler weather.

    Sherman, I think I blogged about this when I was writing about my memories of 68... my mother's mother was a lifelong Democrat and thought FDR was the second Savior. She voted for Wallace in '68 and later complained that she'd help put a Republican in the White House. Even as an 11 year old, I thought it odd for it seemed to me that Wallace and Nixon were closer in politics than Wallace and Humphrey.

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  5. Dan, I'm used to cheering on losing teams, I've had plenty of practice. Go Pirates! :)

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  6. What an experience you had :)

    I just checked out New Holland Brewery, man their website sucks, I surfed for a few minutes and still couldn't find the list of their beer. Do they have any dark beer?

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  7. Sounds like a great 4th, though I'm sorry your team lost :) I went to the Brewers game,and thankfully they managed to walk away with a win.

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  8. Never knew Jessie Helms very much. His politics didn't make the news out here often.

    You learn like I do, the hard way. Never bring up politics in an unknown crowd. It always ends with someone's foot in their mouth!

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  9. Ha! Love the vasectomy comment! Glad you had a good 4th!

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  10. Mother Hen, they do have dark beers, but the best local brewery for dark beers is Arcadia: http://www.arcadiabrewingcompany.com/

    tc, as I've noted, I got use to losing, and if you're a Brewers fan, you probably have gotten use to it too! :)

    Ed, Yes, I've stuck my foot in my mouth more than once...

    Diane, if I'd only had the foresight--but I'm not clairvoyant

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  11. No air show?!? How did you manage to get out of it this year?

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  12. I could just picture that woman going off on you! LOL I think there are few times when you shouldn't leave a tip at a restaurant...that was definitely one of them! :)

    I like the way you spent your 4th! BTW, what do you mean Strawberry Shortcake is not all-American? It is to me! ;)

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  13. "What wrong with the world is not enough pancakes, lady!" This would be my come back if I was there! ;D

    Oh, and cool sidebar! How'd you do it? Or, how'd Ed show you how to do it?

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  14. Murf, This year my daughter got to fly a simulator through contacts at a big airplane factory--she didn't need any airshows.

    Scarlet, it's American, but not as much as Apple Pie!

    Maggie, she limited us to six and also to a small cup of maple syrup! As for the sidebar, go into your blog layout and hit "add a page element." Then choose "My Blog list." You'll have to add the blogs you want to track--I still need to add a few.

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  15. Thanks, Sage! What a stingy hostess! :P

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  16. I loved the photo you posted. Beautiful wildflower!

    And it sounds like you did get yourself in a predicament with that lady.

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  17. Loved the vasectomy comment, Sage. Sigh. If only...

    I also like this new sidebar option in Blogger. Just haven't got around to trying it out yet.

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  18. You must get around writing and publishing your travelogue. When you do publish it, I would like to review it.

    :D

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