By Jim Heffernan
Maybe it’s old age, but more and more my thoughts seem to crystallize in my mind as pictures that transport me to the past or illustrate the present.
Somehow, recent events took me back to the early 70’s when we were still in the Air Force and lived in suburban Colorado Springs. We lived in a new 900 square foot house that I bought with a $99 down payment that left me with a mortgage payment of $118. The mortgage payment was about what groceries for the month cost. Our boys were toddlers and drive-in movies were our big night out. It seems like we could always scrape up the $1.25 a carload fare, pop a couple bags of popcorn and head to the drive-in in the family car. We’d leave early enough to give the boys time at the playground and they were usually asleep before the end of the cartoon.
Clint Eastwood “spaghetti westerns” were popular then and were often part of the triple feature. “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly” was the last in the series. It featured Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef, and Eli Wallach. I’ve watched it or parts of it more times than I care to admit. The kids asleep in the back seat, the magic of Colorado summer nights, and a lovely wife by my side. Sometimes we’d watch the movie, sometimes we’d kiss and end up leaving early, sometimes we’d sleep. Perfection!
I’m jolted by present day’s flurry of executive orders by our new president. I hope what we have is a collection of “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly”, except I’m not sure there’s any “good” in there. Maybe there’s one to end the annual switch to daylight savings time. I’d call that a good one. I don’t know if it’s in there, it could be just another empty promise. I’m not enough of a masochist to delve into the cesspool of news surrounding the new administration looking for pearls.
I’d really be interested if anyone can tell me of a good one.
Another picture forms–
A firehose is the perfect graphic representation of what’s going on these days. As Steve Bannon delicately put it, “The Democrats don’t matter. The real opposition is the media. And the way to deal with them is to flood the zone with s**t.”
One of my heroes, Jonathan Rauch, journalist and author of “The Constitution of Knowledge” answered Bannon’s statement with, “This is not about persuasion: This is about disorientation.”
Bright blue skies today, I think I’ll close, sit on the porch, watch the highway and remember summer nights long ago.
As always, discussion welcome at codger817@gmail.com.
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