Worn and whittled weekend where Smarty Jones is passed and Ronald Reagan Passes.

A eulogy of sorts on the passing of many things:

I am tired. Last night we grilled burgers. Beth brought food fixins and I jazzed up the hamburger with Worchester & hot sauce, working in diced onions, and grilling them with smoked cheddar on top; heart attack specials. We also grilled corn & various squash in olive oil and oregano to mitigate the meat. Claire came to visit, which was very nice and we welcomed her back from Honduras for the summer, it did however stir up the ever-present past as she is in ready contact with my ex. I do miss my ex and wish her well – Claire overlaps that life, as do many of the people reading this blog. As is generally known, we did not have an easy time of it and it did not end well, as sometimes is the case. We both fought a long time for what we had built together, but at some point you cross a line where the struggle is more struggle than you can live with and then it’s time to move on. She moved out and we moved on. She used Clair’s truck, which has been put to that purpose before. Actually, the same truck moved her into the Washington house in the ville.

What makes a personal story interesting when you don’t know the players? Is it the degree to which the particular touches on the universal? We know that boy meets girl and boy loses girl, that’s a second by second recurrence in the world, but this particular boy and girl stand as symbols through their individuation – it’s a modernist riddle how we get to the many through the window of the few. The postmodern caveat would be that the only thing you’ll get through that window is a brick wall, truth big T is an illusion. Note the deconstruction of the master discourse when we posit a boy meets boy or girl meets girl narrative. That said – people do still meet people – and in a certain sense that seems to approach some kind of universal plot structure, if nothing else. My jury is still out on universals as there always seems to be a platypus, an exception to every rule.

If we are reflecting reality in our narratives, why then do none of the great romance stories seem to tell the tale of the next person & the next person (& I’ve found that there does always seem to be a next person)? Don Juan is a tragic figure who is too lost in new love ever to hold love – he’s tragic. Oh sure, there’s the handsome widower who falls for the nanny ala House Boat, but what about the serial monogamist who builds a new troy when the old one burns, a story that charts the arc of the many romances a person may have in their lives. I no sooner say that then I am confronted with our evening’s fiction – the retelling of the Reagan Romance. After his first marriage ended in divorce; Ron loves Nancy and the nation loves Ron. The illusion of remembrance colors Nancy’s distinctive reds a nice shade of rose. This story has a gravity to it that I won’t be able to avoid.

Is it really possible, as the TV told me today, that a youthful Reagan saved seventy lives in the swimming pool at which he life guarded? Does that sound credible? The mythmakers have done a bang up job reselling us the man who sent national guardsman against migrant workers and college students in the early days of his governorship in California, he broke the unions, ran up enormous national debt, and is ridiculously given credit for the intrinsic failures of communism, he gave weapons to terrorists in the arms for hostages swap that swept him into power, he was at the helm when the CIA began selling drugs in inner city America to fund unpopular covert actions, he repeatedly blocked advancements in civil rights and was generally a throw back to a John Wayne America that never actually existed, but in the celluloid from which it sprang. Marion (aka John Wayne) didn’t like horses and went to Hollywood to avoid war service. I will remember Reagan and his, “City on the Hill,” the ash heap of history is a high hill indeed.

I thought that Garrison, on A Prairie Home Companion, struck just the right cord when he praised Reagan’s disarming charm, which always befuddled liberals. There’s a lesson there for the beleaguered left who think reason will carry the day when all of human history seems to deny this hopeful impulse. Garrison sang Ron a song, a Louisiana funeral march, somber at the outset and swinging at the finish.

I suppose I too am sometimes suffered on the strength of my charm, my presidency has had its’ own share of mistakes and I don’t mean to white wash them with this apology: I’m sorry for the loss that comes with love and the pain that persists when hopes aren’t fulfilled and promises kept. I’m sorry Smarty wasn’t bred for that track, I wasn’t bred for my track, and neither was Ron. May the horses of the future run on tracks that they’re trained for and may the Troys of the future always have a Shlieman to keep them honest. When we all pass, as we all will, hope that there’s a Garrison handy to point out your strengths and sing past your weaknesses in mourning and in celebration for the life that you lived.