Well, at last, the election is over. No one I know is happy about the outcome, which tells you I run with a conservative crowd. It is going to take some getting used to – saying President Obama! I never thought I would see the day when America would elect a black man who sat under the preaching of a radical racist for twenty years, associates with a former terrorist, and is considered the most liberal senator in Congress! Not only that, but he has a Muslim father (It’s been seven years since 9-11), he comes from Chicago, the most politically corrupt city in America, he has almost no experience, and he has a funny name. He does have charm and charisma, and I wonder if people would have voted for him for that reason alone if the Republicans had not made a complete mess of the past eight years. If so, democracy may not be such a great form of government after all.
I guess now all we can do is just wait and see what happens. For the record, I do not believe Obama is a Muslim, a terrorist, or the anti-Christ! He seems an intelligent and personable man who certainly has the gift of speaking. My prayer is that he will have to move towards the center and will be a better President than I expect. I also pray that he surrounds himself with people who will give him good advice, since his own knowledge of things like foreign policy is so limited. He certainly has his work cut out for him! Let’s see – a failing economy, housing foreclosures, rising unemployment, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, climate change…why did anyone want this job??? I guess I’ll just hang out by the mailbox and wait for my tax refund – NOT!
I think the worst thing about this election is the possibility Obama will appoint two or three Supreme Court justices. A President can only do so much damage in four short years, but justices who rule from the bench are there for life. All hope of overturning Roe v. Wade may be lost now.
Actually, I think things may get better for a while. Many people are more hopeful, and we may actually get that middle-class tax cut, though I won’t be holding my breath. The long-term effects of his tax-and-spend policies probably will not come into play for several years – when the Republicans are back in power, and of course, they’ll get blamed for it!
Well, enough of politics. I have now turned off the news and started thinking about other things. This week, I took Mama to a ladies’ meeting at the church. It was really just the women of the church getting together to eat a sack lunch and visit with one another. I decided I would go, too, so I packed Mama and me a sandwich. As I suspected, I was the youngest one there. Though I felt a little out of place, these older ladies were a hoot! One of them brought pictures of her Polish chickens. If you’ve never seen one, you should Google them. They are very pretty, colorful chickens with a sort of pom-pom on top of their heads. (One lady suggested the cheerleaders could grab a couple of chickens by the feet and swing them through the air while leading cheers.) Anyway, the feathers in the pom-pom grow very long and hang over their eyes. This lady (Judy) lets the chickens out into the yard every afternoon and then gathers them back into their house at dusk. The other chickens have no problem getting in, but the Polish chickens can’t see very well due to their long feathers and keep missing the door, running into the walls. At this point in the story, Mama, who had not said a word until then, quipped, “Those chickens really are Pollacks!” Everyone laughed except the proud owner of the chickens who responded, “I do NOT refer to my chickens as Pollacks!” Anyway, Judy’s husband, Elmer decided the chickens needed a haircut! (Wouldn’t that be a “feathercut”?) He held a chicken with one hand under its body and the other holding its neck while Judy attempted to cut the feathers on top of its head. To say the least, the chicken was not happy. They finally gave up and decided the chickens would just have to keep bumping into things. The story of giving a chicken a haircut spread throughout the church, and Elmer says he will never live it down.
Some of the ladies began talking about how poor they were growing up. It wasn’t very long ago that this area was a poverty-stricken, backward region of the country, as the mountains were cut off from the rest of the world. People who grew up here have seen tremendous changes in their lifetime. Rich retirees and artistic types have migrated into the area, bringing money and culture to the mountains. Still, Clay County is one of the poorest counties in North Carolina. The older people remember how it used to be, but they say they were not unhappy, because everyone they knew was just as poor as they were. I guess it’s all about expectations.
One lady remembered when she and her sister and little brother would go to school. There was only one pair of shoes for her and her brother to share. So one day, she got to wear the shoes while her mother carried her brother, and the next day, he got the shoes and she was carried to school. The older sister had her own shoes, and Shirley could hardly wait to have a pair of her own. Well, she had an uncle who owned a small department store. She was in the store when she saw a shiny pair of red shoes with a strap around the ankle – her size! She wanted those shoes more than anything, but she had no money and knew better than to ask her parents. But every Saturday, her mama gave her a quarter to take to town to pay for a movie show, a bag of popcorn, and a soda. Well, she continued going to the movie show, but passed up the popcorn and soda until she had saved up two dollars to buy those shoes. She was so proud of those shoes that she took them off when she got home and put them inside a pair of socks so they wouldn’t get scratched. She remembers them fondly after all these years. And we think we have hard times now!
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