Wednesday, October 27, 2004
Bird's first ballot
By The Erudite Redneck
Bird* passed through on her way from Tejas back to Oklahoma-State today and informed me that she would be driving down on Tuesday to vote — her first-ever vote as a grown-up Bird!
The fact that she would be voting was no surprise. Me and Dr. ER have raised her right. The surprise was that she’d registered to vote at home. I just assumed she’d registered at Stillwater. I voted at an armory there back in the day, probably the same one she’d vote at if she voted there.
Anyway, she’ll be drivin’ in just to vote — in a Baptist church, which cracks me up because it just galls the non-Baptist Dr. ER to have to vote there. With her mama off on another bidness trip that day, I will be the one who takes her and is present for her first-ever act of civil obedience.
I will be a proud Erudite Redneck — even prouder because Bird knows the right way to vote, which means she will be lookin’ for another kind of bird — a proud rooster — for guidance on where to leave her marks on the ballot.
Stamp it, hon’.
This news gave me a flashback to another "first" for Bird, which was revealed one evenin’ on the way home from the paper in Texas. It started like this, with Bird sayin’ somewhat uncertainly, "R, do you know that thing that girls get and boys don’t ...?"
Whereupon I whipped the truck into the nearest Albertson’s and said, " ‘Nuff said," whipped out a twenty and continued, "Just go in there and get whatever you need."
She was as cool as a cucumber, which made it easier for ol’ ER, who is real easy to embarrass, to handle. Then we went to a Sonic to get her a DP and me a vanilla Coke before headin’ to the house.
It was a real Redneck-Bird Kodak-type moment.
Election Day will be another one.
Those moments are few and far between -- the just-me-and-Bird ones -- but as the saying goes, they’re priceless. And they make all the lonesome days when the nest is empty easier to accept.
-----
* "Bird," short for "Baby Bird," She Who Is my Redheaded Redneck Stepchild, a freshman at Oklahoma State.
GO POKES! BEAT ou!
END
Bird* passed through on her way from Tejas back to Oklahoma-State today and informed me that she would be driving down on Tuesday to vote — her first-ever vote as a grown-up Bird!
The fact that she would be voting was no surprise. Me and Dr. ER have raised her right. The surprise was that she’d registered to vote at home. I just assumed she’d registered at Stillwater. I voted at an armory there back in the day, probably the same one she’d vote at if she voted there.
Anyway, she’ll be drivin’ in just to vote — in a Baptist church, which cracks me up because it just galls the non-Baptist Dr. ER to have to vote there. With her mama off on another bidness trip that day, I will be the one who takes her and is present for her first-ever act of civil obedience.
I will be a proud Erudite Redneck — even prouder because Bird knows the right way to vote, which means she will be lookin’ for another kind of bird — a proud rooster — for guidance on where to leave her marks on the ballot.
Stamp it, hon’.
This news gave me a flashback to another "first" for Bird, which was revealed one evenin’ on the way home from the paper in Texas. It started like this, with Bird sayin’ somewhat uncertainly, "R, do you know that thing that girls get and boys don’t ...?"
Whereupon I whipped the truck into the nearest Albertson’s and said, " ‘Nuff said," whipped out a twenty and continued, "Just go in there and get whatever you need."
She was as cool as a cucumber, which made it easier for ol’ ER, who is real easy to embarrass, to handle. Then we went to a Sonic to get her a DP and me a vanilla Coke before headin’ to the house.
It was a real Redneck-Bird Kodak-type moment.
Election Day will be another one.
Those moments are few and far between -- the just-me-and-Bird ones -- but as the saying goes, they’re priceless. And they make all the lonesome days when the nest is empty easier to accept.
-----
* "Bird," short for "Baby Bird," She Who Is my Redheaded Redneck Stepchild, a freshman at Oklahoma State.
GO POKES! BEAT ou!
END
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I love this story beyond measure! All of it! (Notice the exclamation points!)
Voting was a family ritual for me. At the age of 5 I accompanied my parents to a school (not the one where I attended kindergarten) to vote in the Kennedy-Nixon election. Of course I was a Democrat from that early age, and I paid for my political views that day. When I arrived at my kindergarten, I was summarily stuffed in a locker by the Nixonites of my class. That's when I learned to have the courage of standing up for my beliefs even when those around me were being stoopid doody-heads... er, I mean, even when those around me disagreed.
Voting was a family ritual for me. At the age of 5 I accompanied my parents to a school (not the one where I attended kindergarten) to vote in the Kennedy-Nixon election. Of course I was a Democrat from that early age, and I paid for my political views that day. When I arrived at my kindergarten, I was summarily stuffed in a locker by the Nixonites of my class. That's when I learned to have the courage of standing up for my beliefs even when those around me were being stoopid doody-heads... er, I mean, even when those around me disagreed.
Welp, I dang near got into a schoolyard fist fight with a Ford man back when all us farmin' types were supportin' Smilin' Jimmy!
Do you have any regrets that Smilin' Jimmy turned out to be one of our worst presidents? Or the most embarrassing ex-president? He makes Bubba looks dignified. He should stick to building houses.
# posted by 
: 6:31 PM
: 6:31 PM
I agree. You owe that Ford man that you bullied on the school yard an apology. (If he's still around. Any one who refers to his computer tech as Doc Stone has to be getting on in years.)
# posted by : 11:22 PM
: 11:22 PM
Yeah, I can see ER and his gang of farm thugs (wearing their blue FFA jackets) running roughshod over the school yard.
# posted by : 11:53 PM
: 11:53 PM
Interesting how y'all misread what I wrote. It was the Ford man pokin' his finger in MY chest back in the fall of '76, at the first of seventh grade.
Nothing Jimmy Carter has said or done is embarrassing to me, either as president or since. Nobody could have dealt with the post-Watergate malaise, stagflation and the Iranian hostage deal any better. And since his White House days, he's done nothing but speak the truth.
One more thing. It was Doc Adams, on Gunsmoke, played by the actor Milburn Stone. :-)
Nothing Jimmy Carter has said or done is embarrassing to me, either as president or since. Nobody could have dealt with the post-Watergate malaise, stagflation and the Iranian hostage deal any better. And since his White House days, he's done nothing but speak the truth.
One more thing. It was Doc Adams, on Gunsmoke, played by the actor Milburn Stone. :-)
As President, Carter demostrated that all you had to do was poke Uncle Sam in the chest and he would back off. This has encouraged every school yard bully in the world since.
Again, I admire Carter for his charity work after he left office. But he embarrasses himself and the country everytime he opens his mouth. The proverbial straw for me was seeing him snuggling with Michael Moore at the convention.
By the way, I did not misread your story about the Ford man. I was jerking your chain, ya big galoot;-)
Again, I admire Carter for his charity work after he left office. But he embarrasses himself and the country everytime he opens his mouth. The proverbial straw for me was seeing him snuggling with Michael Moore at the convention.
By the way, I did not misread your story about the Ford man. I was jerking your chain, ya big galoot;-)
# posted by : 10:22 AM
: 10:22 AM
The mental image of 'R and his gang of blue jacketed farmboys, spitting their Skoal and Copehagen juice on anyone they who got in their way, made me spray my cherry vanilla DP out my nose. I suppose his gang would include Alfalfa and the Irish kid.
# posted by : 11:58 AM
: 11:58 AM
You know what? I wadn't even in FFA. I've always regretted not bein' able to get of them fine blue corduroy jackets with the great golden emblem on the back with yer hometown at bottom. But when I was comin' up, FFA at my school was a way to goof off half the day. I was in FBLA -- Future Business Leaders of America -- which will make some who know me laugh, and I was chaplain of the local chapter, which might make them laugh harder. And, I got on the "college preparatory" wagon when it rolled by. We had three chpices: FFA, vo-tech in the afternoons, or college-prep. I chose the latter by fluke, more than anything -- which, now that I think about it, might be the very origins of the my redneck erudition!
I loved the story. I have always felt proud to
vote, and have every time. Bird is a very lucky
girl to have had you for a stepdad.
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vote, and have every time. Bird is a very lucky
girl to have had you for a stepdad.
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