Crazy Politics
Submitted by Debbie on 2008, August 29 - 10:15.
My dad has always been interested in-and truly passionate about- politics. All his life, he's liked to read and talk about politics. And he's always liked to watch anything political on TV. When I was growing up, we'd go to rallies, meetings and more meetings, not exactly favorite activities for a teenage girl.
Now, the number of activities that my dad is able to do-or is interested in -is somewhat limited. But his week, the Democratic National Convention came to my rescue.
We knew this was going to bean event for all of us and we laid in supplies. We had to get cable re-installed. (We'd had it shut off due to some inappropriate programming for one with dementia.) We got snacks. A good session of TV requires supplies.
Read, set, go!
Convention turned on, Dad was having a ball. We were all talking about the candidates and what the convention was for when some journalist made an off-hand comment that set the tone for the rest of the convention in our house. Somewhere along the way, someone referred to someone else as "nuts" or "insane" or "crazy"- and boy, did that stick with Dad!
After every speech, he asked, "Is that the crazy one?" After the commentators weighed in, he'd inquire, "Are they the crazy ones?" Put dad to bed and the next day-you guessed it-back to "I Spy the Crazy One."
We all got into it, becoming avid convention watchers, our home ringing with "Which one is crazier?" "You have to be nuts to wear that outfit" "Did you just hear that? Now that is thereally crazy one!" Over and over, and over again.
Now, in and of itself, this is not really nice nor is it behavior I normally want to reinforce, but this was so gosh-darned funny I could not stop. There we stayed, gathered around the TV, to all outside appearances, very "Leave it to Beaver-esque." Snacks and drinks, laughter and conversation. I think my kids have learned more about the electoral process than ever before-and together we learned to embrace the "crazy."