When I was 6 or thereabouts, I thought you were born either a Republican or a Democrat, just like your blood type or the color of your hair or eyes. So I was born a Democrat. My brother told me that it didn’t take hold until my 21st birthday, so don’t worry. He made it sort of like getting married.
Since my dad was a fireman for the train and, of course, a member of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen, he earned our living by the strength of his wrists and the pull of his back, shoveling coal into a fiery maw. Union members were Democrats.
Growing up, I thought Democrats were poor and Republicans were rich. Rich people had grand pianos and curving driveways and always ate in the dining room. Even now, the Democrats say “poor” a lot. They hardly ever say “wealthy.” They think the word “rich” sounds nastier. Since we had everything we needed, though not very much, I didn’t know if we were poor or not – but certainly we were not rich. Republicans, if their roots were in the South, said “underprivileged,” which was the political correctness of the time if you lived below the Mason Dixon Line.
Anyway, for as long as Franklin D. Roosevelt was president, we had a large photograph of him framed and on the living-room wall. We didn’t know that we were going to be the Greatest Generation until Tom Brokaw told us we were. It didn’t matter if you were a Republican or a Democrat. We lived through the Depression and as long as there were railroads, my dad knew he had a job. Others were not so lucky.
Finally, when I grew up, I didn’t always vote the party line, and the man I married was a Republican because he, too, had been vaccinated or had it stamped on his birth certificate. But we didn’t care, we just quietly killed each other’s vote.
When I gave birth in 1951, I shared a room in the hospital with a young, new Mexican mother. Her father was with her. He told me he had brought her here so her child could, someday, get American citizenship. (Sound like today?) She had a baby girl and I had another boy. “It’s like your American president,” he said. “You can wish for one or the other, but after the election, you must respect the one you get.” I hoped her next would be a boy and that somehow they got to America legally.
I’ve been lucky all my life. Because I won the National Oratorical Contest, I received several offers of full college scholarships. I chose the University of Southern California, where this rich and poor matter came up again.
Most people in the ’30s could not afford private universities. At that time, USC was considered a rich boy’s school, and it was my first experience of life associated with the rich. The rich had no reason to arouse my envy and I learned that dangers lurked for many a very rich, young woman who went to college to find a husband, and I learned about those who “married up” and found that wealth per se wasn’t the great advantage I had been raised to believe.
Party affiliation wasn’t a brand on anyone, and after my father died, I began to consider switching parties. Eventually, I became a Republican. Somehow, they seemed to have better manners and their conventions were less boisterous.
But I had adored Harry Truman, most especially because he kept ordinary stamps in the top drawer of the Oval Office and he used them when he wrote to Bess or to his mother. And I liked the way he dealt with Gen. Douglas MacArthur, this man, Truman, who had no degree above high school.
And he went back to Independence, Mo., by train. When asked by a reporter, “What was the first thing you did when you got home?” the president looked quizzically at the young man and said, “I took the grips up into the attic where they had come from.”
It is no sin for a Republican to like and admire a Democrat. Often, we must toss bumper stickers and party affiliations aside and take the advice of that Mexican grandfather – you have to, anyway. Ungrudgingly.
Marjorie Bruce (bruce8651@aol.com) taught English, drama, public speaking and creative writing for three decades. She retired to Colorado Springs, where at 87 years old she does as she pleases.
