Greetings from the Ridge.
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No matter how nice the White House bedroom may be, and in spite of the luxury of being able to fly around the world in Air Force One without taking your shoes off at every airport, you’ve got to pity any U.S. president… at least a little.
There’s no standard handbook on what it’s like to become our chief executive and if one president learns anything about handling the troubles of the office he usually does a poor job of passing the information along to his successor.
My friend Elizabeth caught me after church, consumed in an unholy snit fit. "What’s he going to do about it, Freida? I just want to know what he’s going to do about it? It’s gotten worse every day since he took office!"
I thought she was talking about the preacher’s earth-shaking move of putting the responsive reading before the offertory. "I pretty much don’t care either way, Elizabeth."
"About the potholes?"
"Potholes?"
"The potholes in front of my house weren’t even there before we elected that godless liberal into office!"
I was flummoxed. How do you respond to such wild-eyed insanity? And what possible motive would the Anti-Christ have for digging a hole in your asphalt? "Have you tried calling the White House, Elizabeth? Ask for the Department of Gravel?"
"You voted for him, didn’t you?"
"In fact, a plurality of folks did."
"See there. You’ll defend him no matter what!"
Before I could respond she did an ecclesiastical about-face and huffed off to her Sunday School class where they were discussing wisdom and grace while drinking tea. It’s just as well. I couldn’t for the life of me think of a way to politely laugh in the woman’s face without finding myself lumped into the general category of godless-liberal-pothole creators.
Even the president’s harshest critics will agree that the load handed to Obama is about as heavy as any since the Great Depression. Wars, terrorism, world-wide economic jitters, a whole plateful of social issues… some of which are created just to get the other team elected… and environmental problems that loom more heavily with each passing season. Like him or not, the guy’s got enough problems without us loading on our pothole-ian gravel grovel.
T.V. screenwriter Rod Serling’s most famous Twilight Zone episode was entitled "Nightmare on Elm Street." A group of faceless aliens landed in a pasture somewhere outside a small town in America and came up with a way to destroy the town. They simply caused all the lights on Elm Street to go off except Charlie’s. No one had lights but Charlie. No one had air conditioning. The once-peaceful little neighborhood finally heated up with the fires of accusation and inference to the point where they stormed Charlie’s door, intent on doing him harm. They didn’t solve the problem, but they’d found themselves a scapegoat.
The final scene of the episode showed the space invaders in silhouette. "So that’s all you have to do? Just create a suspicion? No facts required?"
"That’s all," answered the three-eyed wise one of the group. "We don’t have to do a thing. They’ll destroy themselves."
As with any U.S. president, there are plenty of mistakes we can pin on Obama’s back. It seems a distraction to clutter up the field with everything we find wrong or difficult in our lives.
Which reminds me, I need to send a letter to the White House. My neighbor’s cat has developed a love affair with my garbage. I set the bags out every Thursday night and by Friday morning the little terrorists has had an absolute orgy with my Hefty bags. I don’t remember her doing this before Obama was elected.
You ever in Poosey, stop by. We may not answer the door but you’ll enjoy the trip.