The Farmer and the Cowman Should be Friends

I have a tendency to get worked up at election time.

This year, I did a pretty good job of staying cool, calm, and collected.

The best way to do this is by not watching TV — which I did not do for several weeks.

Then, about a week ago, I posted this little video on my Facebook.

I thought it was funny, but it garnered some harsh, emotional opposition.

Thus began the phase of me getting “worked up.”

I wrote a blog, and the response to that got a little personal.

What’s going on!

I know.  I know.  Don’t talk about politics or religion.

But news, weather, and sports should be okay.  These days, politics is news and news is politics — at the expense of real, consequential news.

But these tea party folks aren’t looking for a discussion.  They’re looking for a fight.  Many of them, it seems, just discovered the U.S. Constitution.

It makes me nostalgic for the day, prior to the Bush-Gore election, when the world wide web was much younger, when I tried to teach a 5th grade class a lesson on the electoral college.

I had the computer hooked up to a big TV, so you could see the red and blue states and click on Florida once for blue, and again for red.

This was fancy technology at the time — which was the point of the lesson.  I was demonstrating for teachers how the internet could be used, along with a TV, in the classroom.

As I began explaining that Presidents were elected by an electoral college, state by state, the classroom teachers eyes glazed over.  After a short time, they interrupted me to say that this material wasn’t important and that the children weren’t interested.

They were right.  Nobody was interested.  Until a few weeks later when we all got a huge civics lesson.

Now, it seems, it’s gotten crazy.  We’re all too interested.  And some of the novice politicos don’t have the best manners.

I remember handing out pamphlets for McGovern, and then going to Nixon’s inauguration.

Win or lose, it was all quite interesting — but it was more respectful.

On my blog, I wasn’t sure whether or not to approve the comments or delete them.  I approved and argued that people can respectfully disagree without getting…well…nasty.

Then, in order to feel a little better, I moseyed down to the Democratic headquarters and made a few GOTV phone calls.

And watched a bit more TV.

And blogged again…

And watched more TV.

fall
fall

But, in order to get myself back on track, I took a long walk today with my dog — out in nature.  It was quite beautiful out there, with only the sounds of leaves and breeze and geese.  I noticed that geese love to talk to me, but when I answer, it seems to throw them off.  They get quiet.

And I started humming one of my favorite songs:  “The Farmer and the Cowman Should be Friends.”

This made me feel great — but a little old.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.