Oh I know, I haven’t written in a while. All I can say is that it’s been a long year. But here I am back, just like the proverbial bad penny.

See the kid in the photo? Yes, that’s Anon back in the fall of 1952. I look smug, don’t I? ‘All the way with Adlai.’ There have been times in my life when I’ve felt as if I were the herald of lost causes.

Not long ago, I asked a friend who he was going to vote for president. He said that he wasn’t going to vote for Hillary Clinton, “I just don’t like her.” I replied that you don’t have to ‘like’ the candidate you’re voting for – you just have to know that he or she can do the job and do it well.

Since then, I’ve been thinking about why I’m so sanguine about politics and politicians. I suppose it goes back to the evening of the 14th of July 1960. Well, let me set this up for you.

It’s the afternoon of the 10th of July and we’re headed down to the Los Angeles airport. Governor Stevenson is due to arrive any minute. He is going to fight the upstart Senator from Massachusetts. The ‘we’ is my aunt, my mother and I. We join a group of people waiting on the tarmac of the far runway off of Imperial Boulevard. We park and join a small group of people. Teresa Wright is cheerleading the group and we try to decide to sing “Happy Days are Here Again,” or “The Gang’s All Here,” when the Governor arrives. Someone complains about the “what the hell do we care,” in the latter so it’s decided that we’ll go with “Happy Days are Here Again.”
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