A recent conversation on Ricochet brought to mind a post I wrote in the Dark Ages of social media, in this case, in 2012. Twelve years ago. And it’s still there and available to the members, although it can’t be viewed on the public Internet.
I’m about to fix that.
I wrote it just after the 2012 US presidential election in response to a comment from a member who had written about some well-to-do elderly ladies of her acquaintance who’d drunk the left-wing Kool Aid and voted for Obama/Biden over “evil Republican” Mitt Romney.
My mother-in-law was anything but one of those women. From November 8, 2012:
Mum was born in 1918. She married young, an extraordinarily bright man who, in his sober moments, was recognized as the best welder at Pittsburgh’s South Side Jones and Laughlin Steel Works. He was not a pleasant drunk, and Mum’s life was not easy.
After her two boys were grown, she divorced my father-in-law, and, in middle age, went to school to train as an OR technician. When she retired, twenty years later, she was the buyer for all surgical supplies for a large Pittsburgh hospital.
Everybody loved Mum. She was gregarious, a voracious reader, and she made excellent conversation. To the mystification of all those close to her, she had an inexplicable admiration for Elvis Presley.
In addition to her addiction to late-night talk radio, and her habit of sleeping with a piece of soap under the foot of her mattress to cure her arthritis (or was it headaches?), Mum had extremely strong political opinions. You didn’t have to ask her what she thought. She’d find a way to make sure you knew shortly after you met her for the first time. With a smile.
Mum reserved a special circle of Hell for the forty-second President of the United States. She loathed him. She, who generally could find something good to say about almost everyone, had nothing complimentary to report about Bill Clinton. Or, God forbid, his wife.
A few weeks before her eightieth birthday [this would have been in April, 1998], Mum suffered a serious internal bleeding episode. Mum managed to crawl to the phone and call my husband’s ex-wife, who lived nearby. She hurried over, calling 911 on the way. Then she called us.
When we got to the emergency room, I was sure Mum was about to leave us. She was the color of cement. Her eyes had rolled back. Her tongue was lolling out.
One of the ER tech’s was doing that thing they do on the NFL sidelines, after someone’s been whacked in the head. He was asking Mum how many fingers he was holding up. And if she knew what day it was. Mum was barely responsive.
Then, all unbeknownst, he had a stroke of genius. He uttered seven words in the form of a question:
“Who’s the President of the United States?”
Mum’s color came back. Her eyes flew open and she sat bolt upright.
“THAT [Redacted for Code of Conduct]!” She snarled.
And that is why I’ll always be grateful to Bill Clinton for saving my mother-in-law’s life.
Sadly, Mum’s no longer with us. She died in 2007, at the age of eighty-nine, a couple of weeks after being given a cocktail of strong meds that was intended for the lady in the next bed, at the nursing home where she was staying after some heart issues and a bad dose of C-Diff.
She is sorely missed. I can only imagine what she’d be saying today.
And I’m really clear about how she would have cast her vote.
Greatest Generation. Indeed.
I know how she’d have voted in this upcoming election, too. Mum had standards. I’ll always regret that she didn’t live into 2016 (when she’d have been 98). If she had, voting for Donald Trump and against Hillary Clinton’s effort to become President of the United States would have been the proudest moment of her life.
