When Rightwinger Became a Rightwinger
There comes a moment in everyone’s life, often several moments, really, when he or she finally knows, with perfect clarity, where they stand or what they believe in.
I guess I was always kind of conservative….I’ve often mentioned how I voted for and supported Reagan even before I was old enough to vote.
In 1980, Ohio County Schools held a mock election in grades 7-12 to show the kids how the system works. I voted for Reagan. In 1984, I wore a big Reagan-Bush pin, there on the pocket of my stylishly ripped Levi’s jacket, right next to my Wheeling Park High School, Ghostbusters, AC/DC and Huey Lewis and the News pins.
My family was never very political, really; my grandma was always kind of up on what was happening, but we never really discussed anything in depth. Though I’d always been kind of a patriot, a flagwaver, my political foundations were oh, a little weak.
They became somewhat more solidified over time, however, by my association with the family of my friend Alan, who lived down the road. They were a good, solid, traditional Catholic family of conservative Republicans. The father was a local business owner, the mother a traditional homemaker. And they were happy that way.
I got much of my political idealism from Alan’s family, and as such have always been thankful for my association with them.
Years passed…..I was in my mid-late 20s; just living my life. Still a rightist lean to my stance, but….kind of a dilettante about it, you know?
I’d voted for Bush in 1988 and ’92, but I was not too clear, or strong, on some things I may or may not yet believe. No real, solid position.
I was a conservative, yes, I supposed, but still possessed some of my youthful, "progressive" idealism….as they say, "if you’re not a liberal before the age of 30, you have no heart, if you’re still a liberal after the age of 30, you have no brain." That was me.
Then.......one day, in the mid-‘90s......The Grateful Dead came to town. With them, of course, came the travelling freak show known the world over as…..The "Deadheads".
I was working then as a cashier at Kroger’s; if you don’t know about Kroger’s, it’s an extensive chain of large supermarkets spread across the Midwest. The store had received word to be aware of the Deadheads, as they had apparently caused some disruption in stores elsewhere The Grateful Dead had appeared.
The afternoon before the show, a crowd of about 20 of these….people….came in. They were a dirty, greasy bunch; they smelled like strong weed and stronger B.O., and some of them looked like someone had literally gotten into a time machine, shot back to the Summer of Love (1967), corralled them, and brought them forward again. More than a few of them were obviously stoned out of their gourds.
A group of about 6 or 8 of them plopped down in the Snack aisle, tore open bags of chips and a case of pop, and just sat there, talking and laughing….groovin’, I guess. Having a little sit-in, maybe. The store manager asked them if they intended to pay for any of it, but they pretty much ignored him.
The floor manager had a few of us follow them around the store, and all I could do was shake my head.
They got in the way of other customers, who had to go around them; they were just standing there in the aisles and talking, like they were the only ones there.
They wandered around the store, bullshitting and plucking items off the shelves, eating half or all of the contents, and just putting the empty or half-empty containers back on the nearest shelf.
Not all of them were shoplifters, though; one kid came up to my register with some chips; his eyes were candy apple red, the pupils about the size of a pinhead. I had to count out the money he handed me, because he was too far gone to do it himself. He just smiled a little foggily, asked me what was up, and handed me a wad of bills.
Thing is, many of them were older…..40s, 50s…..pathetic Hippie carryovers from the days of Flower Power, and much more than old enough to know better. They just didn’t care. The younger ones were kind of like throwbacks…later-born Hippies. These people were animals.
And they were happy that way.
I’d been around enough to know that what I was seeing here were……..liiiibeeeraaaalssss. I knew right then that I wanted nothing to do with anything that had anything to do with them.
Thereafter, my eyes widened, I started reading a little more; I did read some liberal and Leftist stuff…..I avoided Marx, though, because, in the post-USSR world, I felt his ideas no longer had much merit.
I realized that his theories had resulted in a whole lot of people being oppressed, as well as a whole, gi-normous lot of unnecessary graves, and all in a relatively short amount of time.
At any rate, none of the Leftist stuff struck any chords with me. I finally read one of Rush Limbaugh’s books, and enjoyed the humor with which he made his arguments, and the optimism I found there. Both were lacking in most of the self-serious liberal stuff I read. I started sliding more and more to the Right; I developed some solid opinions on life that I hadn’t had before.
So, thanks to the Grateful Dead and their ragtag coterie of losers, rejects and throwbacks, another Rightwinger was born.
And I’m happy that way.