News from the Plains: All this RED can make your BLUE
Is it Noonan or is it Not
by Barry Friedman
Innards.
On this Labor Day, I think, long for them.
We all have them. You, me, Ronald Reagan, Nat Hentoff, Edward Snowden, the American worker all have them. Even this president has them. This president, this … worker. Ha!
The country, too, has them, though they are watched, stored in metadata, like some enormous diary.
I shudder at the violation--like an extra key has been made to the diary. As a girl I had a diary, called it “Peg Star”--or “P.S.”.
It’s like … well, it’s so tough to describe this violation because it is so violating.
The president, this president, this man of rhythm, clumsily under the bed, looking for the key.
The key to my Peg Star.
I shudder!
Away from diaries. Back, I go. To work. To the innards it takes to go in a garage and fix a flat, built a computer … sweep up, get the Gatorade from the trunk.
Where is that America on this Labor Day?
Sigh.
And what of these innards? They are in your head and heart, breasts and joints. They’re in your gut, too, snaking lower and lower to … well, where passion and purity reside. Private innards, the kind that jump when men (in my case) enter the room with aplomb and dignity. I love those innards in a man. And what they do to my innards—well, I blush.
I exhale mightily.
For what, more grandly, of this country’s innards? They used to be strong, ready for battle, ready to—yes, I think of him, RR—hop on a horse and ride. In my fantasy, we are all in shiny boots and jodhpurs. I hear the galloping and horses neighing. I see their sweat; I see their passion. I see the blood traversing through their hindquarters and long legs and underbellies.
I feel my own. I exhale, mightier still.
Reagan's passion... envelope me!
I think of men … smooth, firm legs, tight bottoms riding by; the women, busty but classy.
America well-endowed, working, dreaming … in that garage.
Firm. "Sitting way up high."
This president, though, he rides to get from one place to another, quickly—from Libya to the IRS to the AP to vacation. And now to Syria. But we need him to ride, to yell--Kramer said it best-- “Giddy-up.”
And, now, maybe impeachment, maybe lower deficits. Who knows?
I weep as he goes from one extreme to another.
Joyless. A performance. I see the arch in his back.It is a point guard’s back—not a rider’s.
He meets with Magic Johnson. Why not a power forward?
I see gaps. I see security breaches; I see a president grayer; I see a people yearning.
Reagan, if you recall, never looked older; never looked troubled, never looked like he worked. He was a pioneer. Oh, his Innards... were revolutionary.
His were … his.
You could imagine him riding, reaching down, sweeping you up with one arm.
I imagined many times. Still do.
I think of Harry Chapin--”It has to be the going, he said in GREYHOUND (the bus, not the horse, not even the dog), “not the getting there that’s good.”.
Ooooh. To sing. To ride.
Innards tumbling … in free fall.
Reagan didn’t listen to Chapin, but he heard America.
“Born in the USA”; not a taxi.
“Dancing in the Dark”; not on “WOLD.”
The president listens to Al Green.
He sings--"Let’s Stay Together.”
Ooooh, were we ever?
Yes, I need some of that “Sunday Morning Sunshine.”
“To come into my Monday morning rain”.
“The door’s open but the ride ain’t free”.
I can feel it in my innards--it is where I labor.
It is where I weep.