From President Ford to Nigerian Princes

I live in President Gerald Rudolph Ford territory. The Ford Presidential Museum is near-by, his childhood homes, too, and I met the guy on many occasions when I was a kid. Ford had a camper that as near as I can remember looked like the one in the photo to the left and when he wasn’t in Washington serving one of his many terms in the House of Representatives he was in his district moving that little camper around to different neighborhoods so it was convenient for his constituents to come talk to him. He’d publish a schedule in the paper and people would line up at the door and if my memory serves me right when you got inside a kitchen timer was started so everyone one in line got an equal amount of his time. That kind of attention to his constituents is what kept him in office from 1949 through 1973. Ford was a Republican and my dad was a Democrat and a labor union representative for the factory where he worked and Dad took me with him whenever he had ‘advocacy work’ to do with Ford. Ford listened, took notes and gained my father’s respect. 

I know a lot about Ford so I almost didn’t go to the Life Enrichment lecture at the senior hall about the former president. But I needed to get back into my normal routine and I did learn a few new details like the fact that “Junior” was a stutterer until the 5^th grade when his teachers finally quit trying to turn the left-hander into a right hander, then the stuttering just went away on its own. I also learned he kept a copy of Robert Kipling’s poem “If” in his breast pocket every day of his adult life. As a boy his mom used to make him recite the poem if he showed any signs of a temper. She feared having a bad temper was passed on from his birth father who was physically abusive. She had left him when her son was just two weeks old.

My favorite permanent exhibit at his museum is about pop culture from the 1970s because Ford was the president during the Bicentennial and if I had to name a favorite year in my life, it would be 1976. I even had a long, loose fitting hippie-style dress with a smocked front that I made out of a light weight “homespun” cream colored fabric with small, 1976 dated flags and fireworks printed all over it. I wore it to every weekend music festival and parade we could find that summer of ’76. I still have it. As Marie Kondo would say, it gives me joy. Seeing it from time to time hanging in the back of my closet makes me want belt out a little Bellamy Brothers “...Let your love fly like a bird on a wing and let your love bind you to all living things..Just let your love flow like a mountain stream and let your love grow with the smallest of dreams..."

After the lecture I walked across the hall to go Book Club. I’ve never been less prepared for a book discussion and I didn’t even try to bluff my way through it. I’d read the book a couple of years ago and had planned on reviewing it last week but the power outage put a snare in that plan. I couldn’t concentrate on anything more complicated than putting a 500 piece jigsaw puzzle together. Yup, that’s what I did when I was cut off from media and good reading light. From the time I was a kid, if weather got in the way of something we wanted to do, we’d pull out the puzzles or games. We didn’t even have electricity in the early years at the cottage or indoor plumbing. Puzzles, Monopoly or playing poker were our ‘devices’ back in the ‘40s and early '50s. 

A week ago today when I posted the short note about having to leave the house because I didn’t have heat or power someone left the following comment on that blog entry: “You Baby Boomers are the most evil generation to ever exist. You are all psychopaths. You destroyed your own children’s future, destroyed the economy and then you sit back and laugh. I hope you boomers enjoy your retirement homes! I guess what I’m really trying to say is, can you Baby Boomers hurry up and fucking drop dead?”

It was a poop-and-fly-away, cut-and-paste comment that I found on several other blogs after googling those words. It wasn’t the first time I’ve heard Millennials vs. Baby Boomers smack like that. It’s a theme that pops up on political message boards from time to time. But wouldn’t you love to know the backstory on why that particular Millennial feels so beaten down by his/her life that he/she has taken to leaving death wishes Johnny Appleseed style across the internet. I'm tempted to say, "Get a grip! Gripping about the generations before and after our own is a time-honored tradition."

But rather than get snarly about the “debate” I tend to look for the lighter side of the Millennials vs. Boomers conflict. For example: A tweet by Mrs. Math Teacher: “Baby Boomers blame Millennials for everything but WHO PUT CARPETING OVER ALL THESE HARDWOOD FLOORS?” Or this tweet by Andy Levy: "'Millennials are idiots' [says] the generation that made a millionaire out of the creator of the pet rock." And Zach Wallen's: “I love Baby Boomers who say ‘kids don’t even know how to write cursive’ in a negative way. Like ‘okay, grandma you can’t even turn your laptop on without getting six viruses and wiring half your retirement income to a Nigerian Prince.’” ©

The Bellamy Brothers

Oprah for President…or Not!

The biggest decision I had to make Monday was whether or not to cancel my haircut appointment. It had snowed overnight and the snowplow hadn’t been down my cul-de-sac and it was a mess out there. After watching the morning weather report I called the salon and asked if my girl had any openings in the afternoon that I could switch to. She did. And low and behold by the time I had to leave, the sun was shining bright and the snowplow came by like the giant, green machine that it is, pushing all the snow to the side in its wake. I was free, free at last! It was the day after the Golden Globes and I was anxious to get a reading from the millennials working at the salon regarding Oprah’s speech given after receiving the Cecil B. DeMille Life-Time Achievement Award. I was not disappointed. They were ready to put on their pink pussycat hats and support her, should she run for president. 

When I first heard the speech it brought tears to my eyes but it wasn’t until her long-time boyfriend, Stedman, said that she was seriously considering the idea of running that I realized I needed to be on my favorite political debate site where an Oprah run for president might be a hot topic of discussion. It was and it thoroughly entertained me both Sunday night and Monday. Trump fans were twisting themselves into pretzels saying a "TV reality host" isn’t qualified to run for president and it was even funnier when Sean Spicer gave an interview saying the same thing. Did he forget that his former boss was a TV reality host with no experience in governing when he threw his hat in the ring? And she actually built her 3.1 billion dollar media empire all by herself where Mr. Trump’s fortune was piggy-backed off his father’s fortune. But to the Trump supporters I was debating she’s an “elitist black bitch” who can’t relate to common people and who hates white people. I love political debate sites when one side or the other gets a pea stuck up their nose. Of course, it’s more fun when I’m not the one trying to dig a pea out from where it doesn’t belong.

Oprah’s speech was over nine minutes and she spoke without notes or a teleprompter and the second time I saw it---knowing she could actually run for president---it gave me chills. She ended the speech with: “In my career, what I've always tried my best to do, whether on television or through film, is to say something about how men and women really behave. To say how we experience shame, how we love and how we rage, how we fail, how we retreat, persevere and how we overcome. I've interviewed and portrayed people who've withstood some of the ugliest things life can throw at you, but the one quality all of them seem to share is an ability to maintain hope for a brighter morning, even during our darkest nights. So I want all the girls watching here, now, to know that a new day is on the horizon! And when that new day finally dawns, it will be because of a lot of magnificent women, many of whom are right here in this room tonight, and some pretty phenomenal men, fighting hard to make sure that they become the leaders who take us to the time when nobody ever has to say ‘Me too’ again.”

Before the Golden Globes I would have groaned at the idea of another celebrity candidate for president, but now I’m wondering if that’s exactly what we'll need in 2020. Oprah is known and loved world-wide and she could certainly repair the damage Trump has done to our international relationships. World leaders know her character and philanthropic reputation and they won’t have to take a wait-and-see approach like they would with most others. She smart, compassionate, pragmatic, a hard worker and has the right temperament to be a good leader. She’d also have no trouble racking up enough donations from both celebrities and ordinary people without having to suck up to lobbyists who’d want pay-backs. I'm guessing an Oprah run probably won’t happen although she's leaving the door open to the idea. She’s “intrigued” she says and that’s enough for me to believe that with the next election people with an impeccable high moral fiber, like Oprah, will step up to the plate and run. The pendulum will swing back to sanity in the White House.

After getting a haircut the second hardest decision I had to make Monday happened at the Guy Land Cafeteria where I had to decide whether to eat my late-lunch facing the windows or the cafeteria line. I chose the latter and it was a good choice because after I sat down a group of eight retired guys came in and sat between me and the line. I took out my notebook at the ready to be Lois Lane, girl reporter working for the Daily Planet. My mission: To find out what a bunch of old dudes talk about. I noted they didn’t talk about grand-kids, medical problems, sports or world affairs. They didn't laugh or even chuckle. They didn’t mention Oprah so I’m guessing the Golden Globes was on past their bedtimes. A couple of them did, however, notice when I dropped some tuna salad on my chest, making a terrible stain I made worse by trying to wipe it off. That’s how I knew the guys weren’t all dead. ©