Another angry Republican
Up in Wolfeboro, New Hampshire (no, we didn’t see Sarko) on the beautiful shores of Lake Winnipesaukee, we were enjoying a picnic supper while preparing to listen to some folk music when a man came stalking toward us across the field. We wondered if we were violating some rule by his demeanor and his direction which continued to be toward our picnic blanket. He stopped a few feet from us and offered us tickets to the concert that was just beginning in the acoustic tent down by the lake. “I didn’t come here to listen to my President be insulted,” he said, by which we gathered that the folk singer Jonathan Edwards (he wrote Sunshine) had made some anti-war comments. “I flew that guy around when he was campaigning, and he’s not a liar. Thick-headed, yes, but not a liar.” (I felt like a badda-bam on the drum was needed at that point.) He went on to explain that he wasn’t a bit happy about the way things were going either, but that the Communist pacifist democrats would just knuckle under to terrorists. I spoke up and admitted to being a pacifist and that I thought war should be a last resort, not a first resort. When my husband said didn’t he think the war was about oil, the guy said, “Hell, yes! How did you get here by horse and cart? The Western world runs on oil.” (Well, if the war was really about oil, not about WMDs doesn’t that make the President a liar?) I quickly jumped in, “The pacifist would like everyone to turn around and look at the beautiful sunset over the water.” Which we all did. We then went on to have an interesting conversation about a lot of things. He gave us the tickets, and we parted in a friendly manner. By the way, the Great Waters Music Festival is well worth checking out if you’re up in New Hampshire at all during the summer.