Empty nests and a carton of Luckies

Posted at 11:28 PM on June 13, 2006 by Bob Collins (4 Comments)

I was doing my final run-through of Planet Politics tonight before heading off to bed. My wife retired early -- well, early for me -- and my youngest son -- the high school graduate (did I tell you "with honors?") -- is out with his older brother and before leaving told his mother and I that he'll be home, "around 1.. I'm 18 now."

My wife started the you-sound-like-my-parents-now dissertation on the fact that he still lives in our house and, well, you know the rest if you were ever 18. Finally I said to him, "Pat" -- his name's Pat, you see -- "go have fun, and make good decisions." On the way out the door my wife called out -- as she always does -- "I love you," to which the fading response, barely audible was "you too," which -- for the record -- is the first time my wife recalls hearing what essentially passes for "I love you too," in 18-year-old speak, from this particular 18 year old. "He tells you everyday," I always say to her, "he just doesn't use the three words you want to hear."

Where was I? Oh, yes, so here I sit hoping that the reticent lad survives an evening of $1 movies and God knows what else with his older brother and survives. I mean literally....survives. Honestly, I don't know how birds do it.

Where was I? Oh, yes, as I'm making the final patrol across Planet Politics, I stumble across a Garrison Keillor column on Slate, the citation of which will set some of you to chortling, even though the column had nothing to do with politics, but was instead about how overly protective and serious we are these days. And how we don't do anything anymore just so we can say, "wheeeeeeeeeeee."

He mentioned that when he gets -- if he gets -- a terminal diagnosis sometime, he's heading to the store to buy Lucky Strikes. He said it a day after my wife informed me that on her 75th birthday, she intends to buy a carton of cigarettes and spend the day smoking. She gave it up when pregnant with my oldest son, more than 20 years ago. Twenty years. How did that all go by so fast?

Where was I? Oh yes, that set me to wondering what I'd do if I found out I only have a month to live. I like politics OK and all, but I'm pretty sure I wouldn't spend a second paying attention to it anymore; and not because I wouldn't care about the future, but because, let's face it, nothing really changes except the venom of politics.

We're a few days removed from both party conventions and I can feel it already. A serious pall begins to descend over Planet Politics, and the hair-trigger "what did you mean by that?" mentality of simple conversation has started to appear. This is serious business, as if life itself were at stake. But, if it really were, we probably wouldn't give a rip about it.

We'd probably be out back smoking a carton of Luckies.

Comments (4)

OTOH Bob, paying a bit of attention to politics now means that by the time you are 75 (more likely than not, hopefully) you will still have Social Security and Medicare there for you so your wife can afford that pack of smokes. As someone who has two elderly parents that depend in part on both, I can tell you they think it's a pretty fair deal, as FDR and LBJ intended.

Posted by anonymous | June 14, 2006 8:21 AM

Yeah, maybe. But that assumes politicians mean what they say and a lot of times, they don't. I'm not completely sold on the romantic notion that politicians as a group are looking out for anyone's best interests but politicians.

I mean, seriously, the deficit is clearly out of control, the budget's a mess, MILLIONS of dollars are flowing into their coffers. They spend more time than they'd like us to believe over at the RNC and DNC dialing for more dollars. And when they finally do go to work, what do they do? They vote themselves a pay raise.

Funny, ain't it, how the two political parties in Minnesota today are absolutely mum about this? They crank out press releases like crazy. But nothing about that.

If they're really interested in fiscal respnsibility, why the silence today? On the other hand, they could also crank out a release patting themselves on the back for jacking the salaries up to $165,000. But ... nothing?

Democrats, Republicans? They both took the cash.

I'm not convinced there's a political solution to that.

Perhaps we're just destined to be a nation of "I got mine."

Apparently, nobody noticed what happened in Pennsylvania a couple of weeks ago.

Posted by Bob Collins | June 14, 2006 9:52 AM

bob posits:
// I'm not completely sold on the romantic notion that politicians as a group are looking out for anyone's best interests but politicians.

You're onto something there. I can't figure out what motivates a guy like Tom Delay. He spent all his efforts securing a Republican majority. Did he even care about achieving Republican goals anymore? He, and other leaders in the party (I refer to the Rs, but the observation applies to both) seem to be willing to pander to whoever can deliver voters, primarily for the purpose of retaining power. Then, they use the power to further the party. What happened to the principles that made you become a Republican (or Democrat) in the first place? They're all a bunch of partisan hacks that seem to have lost sight of the point.

Posted by bsimon | June 14, 2006 12:26 PM

It's all money. At a progressive meeting this afternoon I said "The only way progressives will be able to challenge the power of the conservatives across a thirty-year span in the way conservatives have is if we figure out a way that the vastly, vastly wealthy can get even richer by backing a comprehensive progressive agenda. Because that's what has motivated the neoconservatives: greed, greed and more greed. And we can pretend we're better than that and get no where, or we can harness that and use it to try to save our nation."

Cynical I know, but what do you want after 26 years of this antiConstitutional nonsense.

Posted by Albatross | June 14, 2006 1:07 PM

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