Posted on by Phil Strawn

Born Without Politics


I came into this world in 1949, a mere flicker of life amidst the portal to the West, Fort Worth. The good nuns who ran the hospital, those stern guardians of order, chose an unconventional method to usher me into my first cries, with a 12-inch wooden ruler upon my fragile backside rather than the customary spank from a soft hand. From that day forward, I held a quiet disdain for nuns, a sentiment my mother echoed with an understanding heart. I emerged into stark confusion—bright lights glaring above, towering figures in black robes scuttling about. A tiny stranger in a bewildering land devoid of any plan, I only wanted to know what the hell just happened and where I was.

I was a happy kid, or so I’m told. My routine was breakfast, playing until lunch, eating a baloney sandwich, washing it down with Kool-Aid, playing some more, eating fresh-baked cookies from Mrs. Mister’s kitchen, watching afternoon cartoons, taking a bath after supper, and going lights out—pretty mundane stuff.

My family rallied behind Roosevelt in the 1930s, their hearts giddy with hope for a better tomorrow. They believed with every fiber of their being that Franklin Delano Roosevelt pulled this nation from the dark abyss of despair during the Great Depression, and perhaps he did in many ways. Pushing the buttons that led the country into World War Two with the Nazis and giving the checkered flag to spank the Japs. The Works Progress Administration sprang forth from his dream, and thousands of men and women found temporary refuge in constructing parks and carving streets in Fort Worth; each brick laid a testament to earning a paycheck. My father had a lovely singing voice, so he filled our home with a constant tempest of musical disdain aimed at Dwight Eisenhower from the first light of dawn until the sun sank low and I was fast under my covers. Eisenhower was a gentle figure, a soft old soul cradling a golf club like a weary king holding his lost crown tightly. Later in life, when I took to the sport, I learned he was a 3 handicapped and was a certified bad-ass who commanded our troops on D-Day.

I was too young to grasp the significance then, but amidst the familiar shouts and wailing, I began carving my political identity. To belong to this raucous, somewhat heathen brood, I learned to hurl adult insults at Eisenhower and shake my tiny fist in solidarity with my kin. It is a truth held dear — a family that goes full bore batshit crazy together stays together. We were a close-knit brood, vowing to all enter the mental hospital together if need be to prop up the sickest of the clan. My father was the first. Politics and his alcoholic mother got the better of his mind, and he was tied down and shocked like Ready Killowwat. He came out of the procedure a Republican, which caused his extended family to shrink back in disgust and horror. The doctors had taken a witty lunatic Democrat and turned him into a pipe-smoking, tweed-jacketed professor of Ryan Street. His demeanor hadn’t changed much, but the burn marks on his temples never faded. I viewed him as a now sophisticated Frankenfather.

Thanks to my electrically converted Pop, I eventually forgot about old Dwight. I learned to read and write and took to my Big Cheif Tablet, hoping to make a mark, or at least a permanent stain, on this planet. Politics went by the wayside, and I lost interest in gnashing, wailing, and blaming fault. I was becoming a writer thanks to my favorite aunt, Norma, who diligently taught me to read and write before entering first grade. I was a bored child prone to fidgeting while daydreaming about Mark Twain and Micky Spillane while sitting at my tiny desk. I had no interest in the little people around me, uneducated booger eating feral children with no purpose.

When John Kennedy was elected president in 1961, I began reading Life Magazine, my mother’s favorite slick-paged rag. He was a nice-looking fellow with an elegant wife. My mother and her friends went limp, noodle-wobbly-legged when discussing Mr. and Mrs. Camalot. I didn’t get it until the Cuban missile crisis came about. He was willing to risk the population of America just to give Castro and Krushev a butt-whooping and the middle finger; “here Jackie, Hold my 80-year-old Scotch and soda and watch this shit”. JFK had some big ones, as attested by Marylin Monroe. All of us school kids knew we were about to be ashes to ashes and dust to dust. Teachers stepped up the nuclear drills, and we spent the better part of each school day hiding under our desks. Why? If the bomb incinerated our school building, then our tiny desk wasn’t going to protect us. That’s when I realized teachers were as stupid as the rest of us Neanderthal knuckle-dragging children.

When the lovely gentleman with the perfect hair took a headshot in downtown Dallas, Texas, I was like most of my kin and friends. We all felt terrible and mourned for a few days, but then it was “back to the basics of life;” Luckenbach, Texas, didn’t exist then, so we made do with Fort Worth.

My cousins and I were heavily into Brother Dave Gardner, the preacher turned comic. His albums were a bulging bag of witty, logical, and borderline racist comedy. America hadn’t learned quite yet to be so easily offended. Brother Dave’s favorite targets were Lyndon Baines Johnson and James Lewis, a fictional black character from the Deep South. LBJ was perhaps the most excellent Politicasterd crook in history, and by damn, he just had to be from the great state of Texas. We agreed; the lumbering goon from the hill country was as slimy as they come.

Around 1965, I began to form my own political beliefs. I was neither a lib nor a conservative, But a white flag on a long stick, wafting in the breeze. Heavily into surfing and playing rock music on my cheap Japanese guitar, I began to listen to the Beatles. I was told that some songs held mysterious political messages. When Sargent Pepper‘s Lonely Hearts Club Band debuted, My bandmates and I recorded the album on a Reel Reel tape machine and played it backward. After that, I was sure the four lads from Liverpool had been sent by Beelzebub to corrupt our nation’s youth. That’s around the same time our drummer, Little Spector, bought into the Hindu religion and found solace in Ravi Shankar and his melodious Sitar. It seemed I was the only one in the band with enough political knowledge to hold a riveting conversation with an adult.

The 1960s found me non-committal to a political party. The long hair and playing in a band were my disguise. Most of my friends and bandmates were in the bag for the liberal side of life; I was a relic, an uncommitted poof in the wind, although I dug Robert Kennedy and was just getting into his mantra when he followed his older brother to the Spirit In the Sky. Now, there was no choice, but “Little Richard” Nixon and his “Five O’clock World” beard shadow and sweaty upper lip creeped me out.

In 1976, I took a direct hit to the head from the mast while sailing my Hobie Cat 16-foot catamaran sailboat in the Gulf of Mexico off the island of Port Aransas. I was sailing by myself, which is not recommended, and was jibing downwind, which is also a no-no, when the mast caught the wind and reversed position, knocking me off the boat. I was wearing a diaper rig attached to the main mast, and that saved my life. What I do remember after the initial shock from that experience was that, like my father and his electrical conversion, I was now a Republican and have been ever since. I wonder if there is voting in Heaven?

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21 Replies to “Born Without Politics”

  1. My grandmother lived through several wars, including the Spanish-American War, World War I, World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War.  Her husband fought in the Great War, her son in the Second World War and Korea, a son-in-law in Korea, and two grandsons fought in Vietnam.  One grandson was a soldier; the other was a Marine.

    She didn’t like politics or politicians, believing that anyone who dabbled in such disreputable affairs was not a very good American or otherwise, they’d have a real job.  In her 98 years, she voted exactly once; in 1952, she voted for Dwight D. Eisenhower.

    Grandmother hated Roosevelt and Truman – but I suspect her voting behavior might have been different had she known that Ike was unfaithful to Mamie.  I can’t imagine what she would think of this modern crop of nere-do-wells other than perhaps to say, “I told you so.”

    People vote according to who they are, what they value, and what they hope for in the future. In her 98 years, I think my grandmother was mainly disappointed with the slimeballs in Washington. She didn’t like JFK, his brother, or the man who ultimately took her grandsons away to the Orient – because no good would come of it. She was right about that.

    My attitude reflects her views about government, politics, and politicians.  Love of country – undeniably.  However, regarding the government, it is only possible to respect those governments that have earned it.

    I consulted with my grandmother’s spirit (she passed away in 1988), and in answer to your question, there is no voting in heaven. Grandmother’s spirit suggests that the heavenly palace becomes more authoritarian.

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    1. Mustang, you are right, I highly doubt there are elections in Heavan, that was meant to be a joke. My grandfather fought in WW1, I beieve it was the battle of Bellu Wood, but not sure on that, but he did fight in the trenches and a few times hand to hand combat. That generation, like the one after were tougher than the present one. All of my older relatives from the 1940s and 50s served either in WW, WW2 or Korea. I saw my parents change. It wasn’t immediate, but gradual. I’m not a fan of any professional politician. Term limits would go a long way in improving our government. Thanks, the well said reply.

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  3. That is a the long winding road…I love how you wrote it Phil.
    I was a kid during Jimmy Carter so I liked him…I had no clue what he was doing but then Reagan I didn’t like because he was “mean”… gimme a break…I was only 13 when he got elected. I never knew much about politics until around Obama tried a social health care system that even the guy that wrote it said it would never work. Then 2016 after I saw the nuts that went crazy when Trump won…I knew then what was right and that far left crap was stupidity.
    A quote supposedly from Winston Churchill: ‘If you’re not a liberal when you’re 25, you have no heart. If you’re not a conservative by the time you’re 35, you have no brain.

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    1. Well said, Max. Odd how we fluctuate in our youth. I saw my parents change. It wasn’t an over-night conversion, but gradual, just as you experienced. Thanks for the great reply. I know Democrats that should identify as conservative, but they can’t bring themselves to accept the obvious.

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      1. I’ll never vote for any of them again unless they drop the leftist socialism/marxism… Woke is dead in my eyes and in a lot of people’s eyes. And yet the democrats are blaming stars and Biden…when they should look at themselves.

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      2. Like RFK said, the party left him. The Democratic party of the early 1960s was conservative, something today’s party couldn’t grasp. I’m too old to be woke, and as you have read, it gets me in a lot of trouble. I am banned at Home Depot and Lowes, as well at two restaurants in town. Being yourself is tough.

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      3. If I said this one my site Phil…I would lose half my readership…one day though I’m going to say screw it and just do it…it’s shameful in America you can’t be yourself.
        I’m proud of you Phil…I’m starting to come out now in person…out of the conservative closet.

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      4. Thanks, Max. Momo and I have adult children that are liberal and sometimes it’s tough. Family gatherings are strained and we have to check everything we say with a red pencil or suffer isolation. My son wont even speak to me because I am a conservative Christian. I’ve lost followers on WP and FB, but I have to be what I am. My many musician friends from the 60s are still deep liberals and now they won’t speak to me, but what the hell, I’m old and don’t need there shit anyway. Speaking the truth comes with consequences. Hang in there.

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      5. In real life I’ve got to that point where I don’t care who knows. It’s crazy that they can say they are leftists and that is accepted but anything other than that is bad…hmmm who is the fascist again?
        People ask me why I don’t vote democrat….I tell them it’s because I’m the devil…I’m a white, straight, Christian male…why would I vote for anyone who demonizes me?
        Have a good night Phil.

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      6. Max, you are right on. I’m 75 and void of any social filters, I guess you can tell from what I write. I believe once you reach that age to where your time is short, it doesn’t matter so much. Momo and I have suffered a lot of verbal abuse from our kids and families, and that does make us sad, but also a bit stronger in our Christian belief. It’s a tough road to walk .

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      7. Doesn’t it feel fresh and alive when you finally see the reality of this country and wear the armor to lessen the blows from the crazy’s. I’ve had so many arrows in my back that I had to buy new tee-shirts.

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      8. YES! I think even they know it’s starting to be on it’s last legs. I have hope again for the near future.
        My cousin is in the military and he said he cannot wait for Trump to take out the Woke and replace it with a Warrior mentality. They are excited.

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  7. Cool. I would say we had some similarities. My dad and I leaned libertarian over time and my mom and brother are more traditional republicans. Mom wouldn’t vote for Goldwater. But Dad was a critical thinker if not formally educated. (This after his brilliant mother was one of the first women to graduate from University of Michigan). Mom and Dad cried when Kennedy was shot and when Jackie died, Dad was incredibly sad. I railed that teachers were teaching to the median; Dad screamed at the tv at LBJ and most of the liberals. But he’d look over at me and say, “but we need those people, too.” That’s when I knew he was brilliant. I used to share this feeling until recently when the liberals went full on batshit crazy with late term abortion, trans surgery and no parental rights, identity tribalism, and a whole academia full of incredibly stupid people leading our youth astray with free speech and critical thinking thrown out of the mix. (I knew because I was an adjunct professor). But this morning I’m still reading from elitist journalists that even though it was clear why Trump won, he still did not represent cultural America. Really? A common sense populist, America First, no hard line right to lifer, secure borders, no crime, no identity nonsense, he’s the same guy to everyone he talks to. Not a perfect human being, Trump understands America. HE saw where these globalist idiots like Obama (who he hates) were headed and he thought: I can stop these people. And so far, he has –against all odds. Trump believes in the right of the individual, not collective overreaching government. And so far, America does, too. Some of the centrist Democrats are fuming because they knew this was foolish, but they let the far-left crazies take over their party. But I’m not sure they can regain it, either. They may have made a fatal error. I told all my liberal friends twenty years ago it would be divine justice that they were letting in all these Hispancs (they lived in our apartments and picked apples in our town and were good people). They were hard working, religious, family people and they came here to get rid of socialism and tyrannical governments and they knew it when they saw it, unlike our Black population who they had systematically brainwashed. And when they said to me, “demography is destiny,” I said, “yep” and resent their idiot emails back to them. Gees, I wrote all this. Your piece is so well written as always. I can just see how you grew up and picture you back then. Happy Saturday. (Go Lions. Am sure not a great sentiment down that way these days). -L

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    1. Oh he Lions are good, the Cowgirls, good Lord, just horrible. The gentle fans in DFW have a deep hatred for Smiley Jones and were hoping that maybe Elon would pay the 3 billion asking price. It sounds as if we came from a similar childhood and family politics. The entire clan lived within two blocks of each other in the Poly section of East Fort Worth. All Democrats, and the only good thing was they were the Roosevelt Democrats, a little conservative, like JFK. Family gatherings in the back yards was chaos, to much beer led to hot topics and fighting words. All of them are gone except my cousins who are my age, and they are also liberals. The Democratic party of today is not the one we knew as kids and teens, it’s full of batshit crazy young people.

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