Progressive Dinner
I sat beside a Progressive Democrat from Oregon last night at dinner. We got along pretty well.
One thing I learned growing up, especially from mom, is not to see people from the outside but for who they are. I can't remember her ever saying those words. I just saw her live that lesson.
In 1957, when I was 10, we moved from an oil company camp in Eunice to Hobbs. I tell people we ran out of money 5 miles outside Hobbs and grew up there in Nadine. The truth is that Dad wanted to have his own 5-acre plot of ground. He wanted to farm that ground, to raise vegetables, to have a milk cow and a few chickens. He wanted to be self-sufficient. Mom wanted to get us out of the 'camp' environment. It was her dislike of "seeing things or people go to seed". A lot of things in that oil camp influenced us kids, very few of them positive.
So when we got to our little rancho, Mom immediately started a 4-H club. She drove our old '54 Mercury up and down the dusty roads around Nadine looking for other poor families trying to escape the town environments. Soon she had a club composed of 10 or 20 local kids-only 3 or 4 families. We had bigger families back then.
The Armitages were a local black family who lived about two miles closer to town than we did. Mom stopped at their house and enrolled them too. I never thought anything of it. Al, the kid my oldest brother's age, had pigs just like we did. We threw his pigs in the trailer and carried them with ours to El Paso, Lubbock, and Lovington to the stock shows and county fairs.
I suspect Mom and Dad had some battles I did not know about. To have an integrated club of any kind back in the 50's was really something. I do not know if anything was said to my parents, but within our family, the subject never came up. My only perception was that the Armitage family was just like us; they were poor with lots of kids, trying to scrape by and worried about their kids going to seed. That is where Mom came in.If you were on her radar screen, you were not going to fail. You were not going to talk about failure. You just succeeded...because she willed it.
I grew up conservative, but I grew up with Mom's ability not to be distracted by labels or by how someone looks. I have a friend named Frank Ramirez, also a Vietnam vet. He was talking to me one day while I was in Congress. He told me a friend of his had asked what "the Congressman thought about all of Frank's facial tattoos and piercings." Frank told me that he responded, "I don't think the Congressman has noticed them yet." Not only is that a true statement, but I regard it as one of the best compliments I have ever received.
When my father died last year, Frank and two or three other Vietnam veterans showed up at the funeral. In the small West Texas town of O'Donnell, where Dad grew up, people may have buzzed about Frank. I don't know. There was a stir when they walked into the church. When Frank gave me a big bear hug there was a collective sigh. All I know is that one of my friends in the battle to remember and care for our Veterans remembered and cared enough for me to drive 4 hours to share my time of sorrow and loss. I will remember that until I follow my Dad in that last function we all attend on this earth.
As I sat beside this Progressive Democrat last night, this all played through my mind. We looked at one another without labels. We shared the ability to be serious without taking ourselves seriously. We hit it off quickly. Before the night was over, we were sharing ideas on how to break the political logjam that blocks all nuclear power development. This is how we need to solve problems. We have to run for political office as Democrat, Independent, or Republican, but as soon as we are elected, we need to set aside the labels and serve as Americans to solve the multitude of problems that surround us. If my progressive friend and I were assigned the task of finding the solutions to allow this country to move forward and develop nuclear power, we could do it! The nation needs nuclear power and the world needs it. It is the ultimate green power: zero emissions.
At some point, we have to look past people's labels and begin to act together. If we do not, our great country will simply fracture and dissipate, like Rome and every other failed civilization. America has been the destination of generations of immigrants who, with no hope in their own countries, came to America to fulfill their dreams for their families. In doing so, they formed the greatest nation on earth. It is our sacred duty to preserve the land of freedom, hope and opportunity that they created.
At this stage of my life, gratitude has become one of my favorite emotions. A lot of people sacrificed that I might live free, and live with those who do not see life just the way I do. After last night, I had a renewed appreciation for my parents, who raised me to see the inside of a person and to ignore the labels.
