Wayward Landlubber

     They were not my brothers, those men of my generation standing nearby on a cold, blustery day in the nations capital. We were staring at a marble wall remembering a time when our waists may have been thinner and our hair thicker, in many cases much longer. The names on the wall were young men, boys really, whom we had known in that far-off time. Sometimes we knew them closely, sometimes more distantly. We had grown into comfortable middle age, they had not.      We were a motley group, those of us among the living. We would have been a motley group back then, grooming standards being what they were. Some of us were wearing remnants of old uniforms, seemingly smaller than when first worn. Some of us had sleeveless denim vests festooned with patches and biker colors. Many of those patches were MIA/POW. Some of us were indistinguishable from the run-of-the-mill tourists on the mall. We had come to be in this spot to honor our memories, in some cases for c...

     I first met Robert when he walked into our Toastmasters meeting at Warner Creek Correctional Facility, a minimum security prison. We were a small group of ten to twelve reliable members. On that particular night we were expecting a new member to give his Icebreaker speech. People usually take a few weeks to write that speech, partly to overcome their shyness and fear, and partly to compose a speech that will withstand the inevitable critique. That person did not show up. Robert offered to step into the spotlight with no script or preparation. He gave a remarkably good speech. Funny, self-effacing, and honest. Robert was a full-blooded Native-American, an Ojibwa from the province of Ontario, Canada. He had left school in the fifth grade and run away from home. First Nation tribal members were given dual US and Canadian citizenship, mostly because their ancestral tribes may well have been forced to move north by the US cavalry. An additional factor was because, prior t...

     My first vote in a presidential election was 1972. George McGovern, a decent man but uninspiring candidate, was the Democratic challenger of Richard Milhouse Nixon. History books will tell you that Nixon was a grasping, venal, politician that did anything to hang on to power. In short, a typical Republican. There were however, Republicans who were not typical of their party. They no longer exist. Rep. Paul McCloskey was one of those decent Republicans. He ran a primary challenge to Nixon's re-election that year. I registered Republican so I could vote for him in the Oregon primary. I had no friendly feelings for Republicans, but Congressman McCloskey had two admirable qualities to my young self then: 1) he was not Nixon, and 2) he was against the Vietnam war. Unfortunately he had no chance in his Quixotic challenge.       The downside for me was that it took me years to get off of the Republican mailing lists. For the country, Nixon was re-elected...