The Time of My Life

by Bryan Woolley

  She probably is. She may not need her socks again until January, for people play touch football in shorts and T-shirts on some Christmas Days here. But not all Christmas Days. Predicting winter in Dallas isn’t at all like predicting it in Anchorage or Buffalo or Minneapolis, and it isn’t like predicting summer here, either. Our summers are always predictable, our winters aren’t.

  One cold snap doth not an autumn make. Not necessarily. Not often. For a while now, summer can return at any moment. Maybe not July, but certainly June is possible. June in October isn’t at all unusual. Neither is April or May.

  Texas lacks the more obvious signals of the arrival of the equinox, you see. Texas poets rarely get to write of the glory or melancholy of autumn, since most of the regions of the state have few trees, hence few leaves to turn. Blazing fall foliage is almost as alien to our experience as those sleigh rides depicted on the Christmas cards we send each other, pretending we have something in common with Dickens and Currier & Ives. Our few trees try some years to squeeze out a splash of yellow or red for us, but most years their leaves simply turn brown and fall off. Overnight, it seems.

  So Texans who happen to be in New England or Kentucky in October press maple leaves in books and bring them home to display for their friends. Their children take them to school for show-and-tell, as a New England child would show a cactus or a mes-quite limb.

  Our dearth of foliage isn’t entirely pitiful, though, for New England’s leaves fall off, too, and leaf raking is one of the most overrated occupations on earth. Oh, it may have been fun once. I remember magazine pictures of beaming fathers standing, rake in hand, while laughing, rosy-cheeked children gamboled in the golden piles. I’ve heard of block parties in the old cities of the East where the mounds of leaves were set afire and potatoes were baked in the ashes and eaten piping hot out of the skin and the air was clouded with aromatic smoke.

  But that was before the old, pleasant rituals were done in by fire ordinances, air pollution laws, and the plastic bag lobby. Nowadays leaves have to be not only raked but also scooped up, bagged, and carried to the alley, where perhaps some city crew will deign to pick them up and haul them away someday, or perhaps not.

  The fall foliage season in the East and North is like a party after which the host and hostess wonder whether it was worth the trouble, considering the cleaning up that has to be done.

  The signs of autumn’s approach in Texas—aside from the annual resumption of football worship—are subtler and more satisfying. The fields brown, the blue of the sky gets deeper, the State Fair begins, the rays of the sun slide in from a lower angle, and the air sparkles with such crystal brilliance that the heart aches at its purity.

  Most years, that’s all that happens, and it happens in October, a month we greet like an old and beautiful friend.

  But if it rains in late September and we go a little prematurely crazy, what’s the harm? It’s October now, anyway, and autumn is a possibility.

  October, 1980

  Dan Allender’s Real Deal

  THE MAIN TROUBLE with presidential elections is that the best candidates never get nominated. Dan Allender, for instance.

  In 1952, Allender, a Dalhart, Texas, furniture dealer, posed thirteen questions to the American electorate: 1. Do you want your president to be a Genuine American? 2. Do you want a cleanup in Washington? 3. Do you want a real Democrat and business man for president? 4. Do you want a president that will economize? 5. Do you want a real deal Democrat that will give you action after consultation? 6. Do you want a president that will uphold our good democratic form of government and subdue Communism? 7. Do you believe every U.S. citizen should worship and have a right to their individual religion? 8. Do you believe our foreign aid should be run on a business basis? 9. Are you willing to pay taxes if they are not wasted? 10. Do you believe we should spend less for war and more for peace? II. Do you want a government run on a sound business basis? 12. Do you want a democratic government without corruption? 13. Do you believe in a free United States and world with all your heart?

  Dan Allender believed in all these things, and he thought the rest of America did, too. So he offered himself as a Democratic candidate for president, promising to follow up Roosevelt’s New Deal and Truman’s Fair Deal with Allender’s Real Deal.

  Unlike most candidates, Allender was a modest man. He didn’t brag about his accomplishments in war or statesmanship. He didn’t lay claim to any esoteric knowledge that set him above other men. “I am not a scientist, engineer, or technician in any degree,” he said, “but I do have many years of successful business experience and management, and I feel that I am capable of prorating our tax money and not waste it, and put our government on a business basis without harming our economy. I will uphold our good Democratic government, because Democracy means a government run by the people.”

  If the voters doubted his capability, Allender invited them to look at his name. “My full name is Nicholas Daniel Allender,” he said. “Nicholas stands for ‘victorious people’; Daniel means ‘God is my judge,’ and Allender is a standard American name. Thus a victorious people, judged by God, under an Allender administration, we cannot go wrong.”

  Allender didn’t cozy up to Big Business or Big Labor to raise the money for his campaign, either. In accordance with his philosophy, his campaign was strictly business. He offered to each of his supporters an autographed Western hat for ten dollars (the lady’s hat had a chin strap); a 78 r.p.m. record of his two campaign songs, including a folder with his campaign speech in it, for a dollar; a 33 r.p.m. record of the two songs and the campaign speech, plus the text of the speech for those who cared to follow along while they listened, for a dollar fifty; a beautiful necktie, inscribed “Dan’s the Man,” for two dollars, and picture postcards to mail to friends for only a nickel apiece. All postpaid.

  All the merchandise, you notice, served a dual purpose. It raised campaign funds and preached the Real Deal Democrat gospel at the same time. Even the folder describing the line of merchandise doubled as an Allender campaign poster, or as he called it, a campaign “hangup.”

  “With sales as set out on this folder, I can go to Washington unencumbered,” Allender explained.

  The cost is small, I hope you will help me, contact me for particulars. I will make speeches and public appearances when invited—write, wire or phone me at Dalhart, Texas. ORGANIZE YOUR LOCAL AND NATIONAL ALLENDER FOR PRESIDENT CLUB. Order your hats, ties, records and hangups and picture postcards as mentioned here. Re-order when necessary Tell your friends. Tell them where and how to get the four things that will support my campaign, and uphold our high ideals. The ties that are inscribed DAN’S THE MAN and the hangups will tell our story to millions. Take records to your radio stations, have them play them, (tell them they can get recordings for clients to sponsor). Give records to your juke box operator, they will spin out the appeal of the news—Put the hangups on display that millions can see and read them. Wear your white hat with pride for a man who believes that all men should have equal consideration and is headed for the White House.

  The Real Deal Democrat platform, explained on the flip side of the hangup, is too long to summarize here, but the gist of it is summed up in Allender’s peroration: “I AM JUST AN ORDINARY PERSON. But it’s about time something ordinary happened in Washington.”

  Well, we all know what happened. The Democratic National Convention shunned Allender and chose Adlai Stevenson instead. The Republicans—and eventually, the country—chose Dwight D. Eisenhower. Then came Kennedy and Johnson and Nixon and Ford and Carter. Now we’re faced with the possibility of Reagan or Anderson.

  It has been twenty-eight years since the country rejected Nicholas Daniel Allender, and nothing ordinary has happened in Washington yet. That’s why the country is in such a pickle. We had our chance, and we blew it.

  October, 1980

  An Evening of Video Democracy

  WE HAD PLANNED our trip carefully. Our plane would get us back to Dallas
a few hours before the polls would close. We would vote, go out for a nice dinner, then return home and settle in front of the TV with beer and popcorn and spend a long, exciting evening watching democracy in action.

  The traffic was awful around the school where we were to vote. Cars, parked bumper-to-bumper along the curbs, stretched for half a mile in every direction. “Everybody decided to vote after work” I said. But a car backed out of a space in the school lot just as we were pulling in, and our polling place was only a few steps away.

  Inside, we got lucky again. Our line was shorter than the others. Our wait was only forty-five minutes, and, since the machines were in the school auditorium, we got to wait sitting down. We were back home a little after 6 P.M.

  Tired by our trip, we decided not to go out to dinner, after all. My lady offered to go to the supermarket, pick up a few things, return by 7. I went into the house and switched on the news. Dallas polling places were jammed. Lines of voters were mugging for the cameras. Some wouldn’t vote until near midnight. Anchorpersons Chip and Clarice and the Channel 4 news gang looked pleased with themselves. I was pleased with myself, too, watched sports, weather. “Family Feud” came on. I was too tired to get up and turn it off.

  Just as the emcee was waving bye-bye to the audience and kissing every female in sight, the phone rang. It was my lady’s son, Chris. He asked that she call him back. I returned to the TV. Cronkite was saying Carter was in big trouble. CBS had already awarded Indiana, Virginia, and Florida to Reagan. As I watched, Cronkite gave him Ohio as well. Cronkite, quoting UPI, said the president had been told at 4 A.M. that he was going to lose. His personal pollster told him. The president wept.

  “Four A.M.?” I asked myself. “Only the absentees had voted by 4 A.M. Isn’t that a little early for tears?”

  My lady came home. While helping her carry in the groceries, I told her the score. She was astonished. “How do they count the votes so fast?” she asked.

  “They don’t have to count them,” I said. “The networks have a few key precincts in all the states. They just count the votes in those precincts, interview four or five voters, and give Ohio to one of the candidates.”

  My lady went into the kitchen to make the sandwiches. The locals were on the tube again. Reporters were standing in empty party halls, telling us nobody had shown up to celebrate yet. The polls had just closed. There were no returns to report yet. Lines of voters mugged the camera again. Chip and Clarice smiled at each other. It was going to be a long night, they said. Settle back in your favorite chair and enjoy it, they said. They looked very happy.

  “Oh,” I said to my lady. “Chris called. He wants you to call back.” She went off to another room.

  Cronkite came back. While Chip and Clarice were smiling, CBS had given Reagan another minor state or two. Cronkite, quoting the AP, said Carter had wanted to concede earlier, but Jody Powell talked him out of it.

  “Concede!” I screamed. “Half the country is still voting! Texas is still voting! California is still voting! Who the hell concedes while the people are voting?”

  I ran to the room where my lady was. She and Chris were having a leisurely conversation about Election Day, which was still going on. “If you want to hear Carter’s concession speech,” I told her, “you’d better hang up.”

  “What?”

  “Cronkite says he would have conceded earlier, but Jody Powell persuaded him to wait.”

  “But, but….” she said.

  “You’d better hurry,” I said.

  CBS had given half a dozen more states to Reagan while I was absent, but they had awarded Georgia to Carter. Dan Rather was lecturing indignantly. Carter couldn’t concede yet, he said. Although things looked bad for the president, his situation wouldn’t be hopeless until CBS gave him either Texas or Illinois.

  “They’re still voting in Dallas,” my lady said.

  “It doesn’t matter,” I explained. “CBS doesn’t need Dallas.”

  I was about to get up and pop the corn when Cronkite gave Reagan both Texas and Michigan. No use in dirtying up the corn popper. I made myself a drink and settled back. Jody Powell let Carter make his concession speech. My lady went to sleep.

  Chip and Clarice came on, cheery as all get-out. A wow of a landslide, they said, but stay tuned, folks. Lots of exciting local races to come. Reporters held mikes for two congressional candidates to say some last-minute bad things about each other. I went to bed and stared at the ceiling.

  For two years I had listened to all those jerks campaign, and on Election Night I don’t have time to get the corn popped. What this country needs, I mused, is electoral reform. Henceforth, let the candidates and the pollsters confine their activities to the networks’ key precincts. Let the voters in those precincts cast their ballots and call the networks. Let the networks color their maps and go to hell.

  Let the rest of us be left alone.

  November, 1980

  My First Visit to the Statue of Liberty

  WHY NOT? I thought. As many times as I had visited New York, I had never seen her. Not up close, anyway. Just from the air sometimes, when I was sitting on the Manhattan side of a plane descending into LaGuardia. My lady, a New York native, had never seen her up close, either. Neither had her sons, Chris and Jerry, also natives.

  So when my lady suggested that we all take the subway down to Battery Park and catch the boat out to the Statue of Liberty, it seemed like a good idea.

  It was a clear, cool Sunday. The subway was almost empty. I sat down beside an old lady wearing new black-and-yellow sneakers and vivid purple socks. Thinking me a mugger or slasher or rapist, she glared at me, then scurried to the other end of the car, giving me an unobstructed view of the graffiti.

  Graffiti, Chris explained, has become an art form in New York. The subway cars are public canvases, available to everyone with a spray-paint can and a creative urge. Most walls of the cars—interior and exterior—are covered with political slogans, statements of personal philosophy, and shorthand erotica in several languages. Some are adorned with multi-colored murals after the school of Walt Disney. It’s evident that many artists have spent many hours and many cans of paint decorating the subways.

  On the waterfront, people were lining up to buy tickets on the next boat to Liberty Island. Lady Liberty herself was visible across about a mile of water. Just as she appears on the postcards and in the encyclopedias and textbooks. Frederick Barthodi’s masterpiece, 151 feet tall, standing on a 142-foot granite pedestal, symbolic of the affection that the French felt for our country in 1886. An impressive sight.

  “Isn’t it silly?” my lady said. “I lived here so long and never went out there.” Chris and Jerry said it was odd they hadn’t made the trip before, either. I said it was about time I had seen the Statue of Liberty, too. People are always asking me if I’ve seen it, and I was tired of saying no.

  The boat was so crowded and so many of the people were speaking in foreign tongues that it wasn’t hard to imagine myself an immigrant, catching my first glimpse of Lady Liberty after the long voyage across the Atlantic, about to set foot on American soil at nearby Ellis Island. The power of the fantasy grew as the boat neared Liberty Island and made a turn around the statue that showed us her right side and her back, views never seen on postcards. My mind teemed with images of poor, tired, huddled masses, crowding to the railings and portholes of their ships, drinking in this magnificent sight, yearning to be free. Lady Liberty, I thought, mother of exiles. I was proud to be an American.

  When the boat docked we rushed, touristlike, to ward the entrance in the base of the statue. We pushed and shoved with the rest, trying to get into the elevator that was taking people to the top of the statue. The National Park Service ranger announced there would be a thirty-minute wait for the elevator. However, he said, the stairs were available. It was a ten-story climb to the observation platform at Lady Liberty’s feet, he said, plus the winding stairs up the 151-foot statue to Lady Liberty’s crown. Chris and Jerr
y, being young, chose to climb. My lady and I chose to forget the whole thing.

  We had just begun our browse through the Museum of Immigration on the lower level when the announcement blared over the public address system: “Please leave the building immediately!” requested the woman, trying not to sound hysterical. “The building is being evacuated! Please proceed in an orderly fashion to the dock area and remain there! The building is being temporarily closed!”

  My lady and I proceeded in orderly fashion and asked several fellow evacuees what the hell was going on. Nobody knew, so my lady made her own surmises. “There’s probably panic on the stairway!” she said. “My boys are being trampled! It’s probably terrorists! They’re going to blow up the statue! They’re probably taking hostages!”

  I clucked reassuringly. But when the rangers locked the doors, Chris and Jerry hadn’t emerged. “Oh, my God!” my lady said. I offered to go look for them among the mob of refugees on the dock. I found them. Nobody had told us the statue has a back door.

  By the time we boarded the ferryboat that came to rescue us, helicopters were circling the statue. The FBI and the Coast Guard, we learned later. I kept my eye on Lady Liberty, expecting machine gun fire or an explosion or maybe an Iranian flag. Except for a few seagulls, the island looked deserted.

  “After all these years, I finally visit the Statue of Liberty, and this happens,” my lady said.

  “A lot of people visit the Statue of Liberty,” I said, “but how many get evacuated from it? We’ve participated in a bit of history.”