Painful Memory Monday: I grew up in Newport, Rhode Islands historic Fifth Ward, a neighborhood whose defining characteristics included Catholicism, Beer, Ireland, Hibernians, Labor, Democrat, Beer, and the Kennedys. I still remember my grandmothers advice: When in doubt, vote Democrat. In 1980, a friend dared me to stick a picture of Mickey Mouse with his middle finger stuck obsenely in the air to a Ted Kennedy for President bumper sticker that was on the back of the mayors car, which was parked across the street from my house. The Mickey Mouse image came from another popular bumper sticker going around that read: Hey Ayatollah! Presumably, the mouse was trying to catch Khomeinis eye, and once the Supreme Leader had turned his head to see who had hailed him, he would be greeted by the bird. So I scooted behind Mayor Harp Donnellys Chevy station wagon and adapted the Kennedy sticker to read Hey Kennedy! and stuck the cheeky mouse at the end. But as I ran back across the street to my laughing friend, I saw my Camelot-era grandmother staring down at me from the second floor window of our house. She just shook her head in disappointment and waved another kind of admonishing finger in my direction. In her mind, I was the reason Ronald Reagan soon became president, as well as for the historically high gasoline prices, and anything else bad that happened for the next couple of years. But I was 12 years old and sick of the Iranian Hostage Crisis, the Kennedys, and tired of being Irish.
Posted on: Mon, 12 May 2014 14:18:45 +0000
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