Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, January 18, 1993 TAG: 9301160238
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BEN BEAGLE
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
PRESIDENTIAL HOPES PALE AGAINST A LEAKY TOILET
"Well," I told the greatest station wagon driver of them all, "George Bush leaves office this week and I wonder if we have become a gentler and kinder nation.""How should I know?" the driver said. "The only place I go is the supermarket. I can tell you, though, that there are still people who run their carts into your Achilles' tendon.
"It hurts like sin. They never say they're sorry."
In normal times, I would have asked the driver to show me the grocery cart wounds on her Achilles' tendon and sympathized with her, but I was in much too philosophical a mood for that.
"And then there were the thousand points of light and the book that dog wrote and all the stuff about whether the president was in the loop," I said. "You wonder if the history of the Bush administration has been written briefly on the wind and will soon be gone."
"I don't know," the driver said. "I personally wonder why you don't fix the leak in the downstairs bathroom."
"Madam," I said, "such mundane problems pale into insignificance when we contemplate the passage of a president. We must wonder wither now. We must wonder if that dog is going to write another book, for example.
"And we must wonder if anybody would publish it when she is no longer in the White House."
"Yeah. Right," the driver said, switching to the Weather Channel and promptly getting the forecast high for Naples, Italy, that day.
"It's a serious business, my little tangerine blossom," I said. "We don't pay enough attention to presidents and their promises. Years ago, for example, Ronnie Reagan said we were all heroes. You remember getting a medal? I don't."
"I remember Nancy Reagan was a clothes horse," the driver said, becoming slightly interested in the conversation, but I could tell I was going to lose her again.
"Then there was Herbert Hoover who promised us a chicken in every pot and a car in every garage," I said. "I can tell you that didn't happen."
"Whatever," the driver said, signalling the absolute end to her participation in the discussion.
"Then, Franklin D. Roosevelt said we had this rendezvous with destiny and, boy, was he ever right." I said. "And then Harry Truman was always stopping the buck. Things were simpler then.
"Was there a dog in the White House during the Truman administration?"
But the driver had gone outside to recharge the birdfeeder.
I don't like to talk to myself, so I didn't get into the "Faces of Hope" people Bill Clinton invited to his inauguration.