I've written here a little about my mother. 68. Lifelong Republican. Election judge. College educated and was starting what I think might have been an amazing career, as a political assistant to Edwin Edwards. Heck she worked that job to pay for my father to get his PhD in the late 60s (at LSU in Baton Rouge, so the Edwards connection).
Then I was born, and she became as was common at that time I guess, a stay at home mom. She is about the most determined person I've ever met. Get between her and something she wants and you better watch out. Heck my brother and I, only behind her back, call her the "Little General." She ran the household. She paid the bills. And if we ever did anything wrong, and boy we did that a lot, we'd much rather see dad coming to punish us. She was the glue that did and still does tie our family together.
I could tell countless stories about her. But about my favorite was when in 2008 I asked her who she was voting for (this was a first for me)? I think I have heard my mother cuss exactly once. She said:
I can't vote for McCain, I like him. But Sarah Palin is shit all stupid. She is an affront to smart and strong women the world over. So there is just no way I can vote for McCain with her on the ticket.
That would be the first election, and she has voted in all of them, she didn't vote for President.
Yesterday we had our weekend Sunday conversation, and as we always do right before and after elections, we talked about …. well elections. Today she was training the other folks working the polls and I asked who’d she vote for, if she don’t mind me asking?
Barack Obama!!!!!!!!!!! Why below the fold.
Now before I go on I need to note that I write things here I don’t even talk with my family about. And well, about a year ago my 93 year old grandfather (my mom’s dad) passed away. I was outside and somebody I’d never met started a conversation with me that went something like:
That guy you’re mom married before your dad …..
My parents have been married for 46 years, I never knew she was married before. Not that I so much care, but when you are 43 that isn't something I think most folks learn from a stranger outside of a family member’s funeral.
I mentioned this to my brother, he didn't know either. We went to my dad. He explained that yes she had been married before, and he beat her and raped her, just once. As soon as she could get up, she left him and never went back.
We were told to NEVER, EVER mention we knew this to Mom.
But at some levels it helped me to understand some things about my mom. So many things actually. Why my father’s parents openly hated her, cause I guess they felt she was “damaged goods” or a slut. And why my mom is the biggest advocate for the rights of females I know. Heck in her retirement, where she has more money then she could spend in a lifetime, all it and her time goes to women causes.
Heck for the first few years I was here folks thought I was a women. I took that as a compliment and I know it is cause of the influence my mother had and still has over me.
So it brings me back to her voting for Barack.
Mitt being again the Lilly Ledbetter Act was enough for her to vote against him she said. I can only assume my mom knew many women that were not paid the same for the same work, and that just doesn't work for her.
There are no women on my dad’s side of the family, with the last name I have, has had a daughter for well over a hundred years. I don’t have any kids. My brother and his wife will only have one, and she was a wonderful little girl. Almost 3. I am sure my mom is thinking she wants Katie to have the exact same opportunities her two sons had, which was really almost limitless!
But then she told me something else I didn't know (there is much I don’t know). Not long after I was born, and my parents were pretty poor, she wasn't feeling well. She went to a free clinic in Lubbock, TX (after LSU my dad went to teach at Texas Tech – before starting to work for the DoD) and the doctor found an ovarian cyst.
It was taken care of and no damage done. Nine years later my brother arrived in this world ….
She is pissed Mitt is against Planned Parenthood.
As women here have noted in a more powerful manner than I can as a dude, for many ladies this is their only option. And it is IMPORTANT! It was important to my mother.
And then she dropped what for me was the sledgehammer.
She said:
I think Obama really, at his core, cares about people. Mitt cares only about himself and his family.
I was like you go girl.
I know Obama doesn’t need help winning Illinois. I think he has that covered. But I hope, white, older women like my mom in swing states can see things the way she does. Think of your daughter's if nothing else! I could see how this demographic might just pull Obama over the finish line.
Oh just a few pics to end, cause I always finding out what the person looks like you're talking about .... well that can't hurt.
Sidebar Pic: My mom on her first dad with my dad in his '57 Ford Thunderbird. A few years ago he tracked where it was sold to, to some guy in Texas, and bought it for my mom so they could tool around town like they did when they first started dating.
Sidebar Pic #2: My mom as X-mas. She'll be patrolling voting in her district and as I like to vote, I know in ONE district in this nation every vote will be counted and nobody will "strong arm" you to vote this way or that.