Get the Ricochet app
Ricochet will work fine in a browser on your mobile devices, but for the best experience please download our app.
Yesterday's The Week in Pictures on Powerline featured the above image. Many probably took it as satirical, but—for me—it immediately brought to mind a heartfelt post I wrote here many years ago, having to do with my eternal gratitude towards Bill Clinton for saving my mother-in-law's life. The original can be found here, and almost thirteen years later, I recapitulate it:
Thanks to everyone who pitched in on my previous post [Author's note: That one was written the day after the Romney/McCain election of 2012, and the day before the one I'm recapitulating today] about the peculiar voting pattern of some of the ladies I know.
One comment of special interest came from Anna M, who mentioned the prosperous, traditional-type elderly ladies of her acquaintance who also seem to have drunk the Democrat Kool-Aid and who spend large amounts of their time ranting on about the ‘evil Republicans.’
I immediately thought of my mother-in-law.
Not because she fits this pattern. Quite the reverse, in fact.
Mum was born in 1918. She married young, to 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, 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 techs 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.
During a British conference on comparative religions, experts from around the world were discussing whether any one belief was unique to the Christian faith. They began eliminating possibilities. Incarnation? Other religions had different versions of gods appearing in human form. Resurrection? Again, other religions had accounts of return from death. The debate went on for some time until C. S. Lewis wandered into the room. “What’s the rumpus about?” he asked, and heard in reply that his colleagues were discussing Christianity’s unique contribution among world religions. In his forthright manner Lewis responded, “Oh, that’s easy. It’s grace.”–From Christianity Today
Discussion (3)
To read this bio, please join Ricochet.
Your Mum sounds like a real character! Thanks for sharing her with us again.
CHARTER MEMBER
To read this bio, please join Ricochet.
She really was. Family stories abound, from the days of the sisterhood (they were known as "Toots"** (my mother-in-law, on the right) and "Babe," her sister, who took local Pittsburgh parties in the 30s by storm:
to the story of how she pawned her wedding ring, in 1956 or so, in order to pay for the late Mr. She's successful application for admittance to the Carnegie Institute of Technology's School of Engineering.
And then there was the epic, and very pragmatic moment (so typical of her) when someone in the family asked her what she'd found most different between the United States and England, after we returned from her first ever visit outside the United States, in 1984:
"Well," she said: "Their [English] toilet paper sheets are bigger, and their paper towel sheets are smaller."
**One of the things we did for "Toots's" 80th birthday party (which took place only a few weeks after she almost died as related in the post above), was get some of her ancient family letters translated from the Polish by another family member. Turned out to validate the legend that "Mum's" mother (Stella) had run off to relations in Knox Pa shortly after the birth of her older daughter, and had been bombarded with letters in Polish from her husband (Victor), begging her to come back to Pittsburgh, and offering untold and unceasing love to "Dzeraldinka" (Geraldine, "Mum").
They did eventually move back in together, although one of my fondest memories from Mr. She's stories of his adolescence in how Victor and Stella, his grandparents, never spoke except through notes left on the breakfast table, and how his Grandma (Stella) never referred to her husband (Victor) as anything but "That Thing...."
So sad. But, it must be said, fodder for so many family memories.
To read this bio, please join Ricochet.
Your mother had good taste. I blame the Clintons for everything I loathe about Obama, Biden, and Trump.
My father was born the same year as your mother. You should have seen the efforts we made to get him to the polls so he could vote against Al Franken in his 96th year. We will not inquire too deeply into why my parents' mail-in ballots were somehow mishandled, necessitating the trip to the polling place in the basement of a county building. The polling place was accessible enough, but Dad was wheelchair bound by then, and every trip away from home was a big project. He also had macular degeneration that kept him from reading the ballot. My wife and I helped get my parents to the polling place, and the conservative one of my sisters (who was also familiar with all the candidates and offices, and whose political views at all levels of government were the most closely aligned with Dad's) helped him with the ballot.