In late October 2006, I forced my daughter to go with me to see Gore Vidal and Maureen Dowd talk awhile at Austin's Paramount Theatre, while less than a mile away barricades were being moved and streets blocked off around the UT campus to accomodate the already growing crowd waiting to see and hear a Senator from Illinois who was going to run for President of the United States.I was so excited at the opportunity for my daughter to personally experience the wit and wisdom of Vidal and Dowd, people who had over a century of combined experience observing, living, and chronicaling the American political scene, that I gave little thought to the nearby Senator who's main claim to fame then was that Oprah was crazy about him. I dismissed him as a fad along with some internal thoughts that would not be conducive to good race relations were they to be uttered aloud.
I was so wrong. I've learned so much since then. He ran under my political radar and has caused me to reassess my most basic assumptions about the people of this country, especially those younger than I.
And in an ironic twist of fate, by not taking my daughter to see/hear Barack Obama on that beautiful day in Austin in 2006, I replicated a non-experience of my Grandfather, who lamented for over five decades not taking advantage of his opportunity to make the short trip to Magnolia Arkansas in 1932 to see Huey Long speak to 30,000 people in support of Hattie Carraway's campaign.
I now know how he must have felt, for I too will regret for the rest of my life.
