Mama And Her Big Blue Car

My mother was known in her later years for her “blue or purple” hair, depending upon the rinse applied to the gray during her invariable visits to the beauty shop each Friday. (You never planned anything or confronted any emergency on Friday before noon. It would interfere with that most rigid weekly ritual. And nothing could be worse.) I once asked her about the seeming sacredness of this weekly appointment. “Why do you do this each week?”

“My public expects it,” she resp0nded without hesitation. Not withstanding her own “treatments,” she would also proclaim when out of the hearing of Mabel Sprayberry, “hair that dark has to come from a bottle.” And she might have been right about that.

She was as focused on her hair as much as John Boehner seems focused on his tan. (Oh John, there is much more to worry about.)

Mother was charitable; especially at Christmastime. She would pack up her car with the sweeping fins (it looked like it was going 90 even chained to a tree) and head up into the “hollow” to deliver food and toys. However, when the kids spied her big car, they rushed towards it in unbridled eagerness. Mother would roll down the window and shout in her southern drawl, “Don’t touch my cah! Don’t touch my cah!”

I told her that it was embarrassing. “If you are so worried about your car, why not go in something else.”

“Everybody expects me in my cah! I represent Christmas.”

Maybe she was right. She did lots of good work in the community both in and out of the big blue monster. She just didn’t want it touched. She loved that is was blue. Years later, when the car had gone the way of older vehicles, she was rebuffed when my Dad bought her a new vehicle. “I sent it back,” she exclaimed. “It didn’t match my hair!”

The Republicans are trying to send healthcare reform back. It doesn’t match their elitist stance toward social programs. They wish to repeal this grand gesture of care for America even though it is almost identical in scope to proposals made and adopted by their own types. They are so lost in their ill-conceived partisanship; they are willing to cut off their noses to spite their face. (Are you listening, Mitt?)

They have totally lost control of their thinking processes. I cannot comprehend that these folks are the representatives of any constituency claiming to be a part of the country I love. Their response to healthcare reform has become downright baseborn tackiness. With the “tea partiers” they are encouraging a group mentality that is frightening. Someone is going to be hurt and when that happens it will be too late.

I would have liked it more had Mother not worried so much about her car. However, she did recognize that she could help those “up in the hollow” and she proceeded, year after year, to do all that she could.

Just like people expected to see Mama in her big blue car, I have expectations of the leaders of our country:

-I expect a concern for the citizens that outweighs your concerns for your re-election prospects. (Hang your head low John.)

-I expect honesty in dealing with all of us and with each other in Congress.

-I expect you to lead with grand ideals and not follow a rabid crowd of ill-informed idiots.

-If someone dirty shakes your hand, have the good taste to wait until you are off camera to do something about it. (Shame on you George!)

-I expect you to remember that if a microphone is in the room, keep your potty mouth shut. (Joe, that kind of thing just doesn’t play well in Peoria!)

-I expect a spirit of charity. There are people in need, help them. Let’s become a country of "Big Shoulders.”

Can we start "reaching" the heart of all that is America rather than rolling down the window and shouting, "don't touch that!"?