Brunching With the Dems

by Donna Schoenkopf

The drive to Jo’s is beautiful.

You go out Highway 9 past tawny fields of dry grass. Small businesses inside steel buildings stand here and there along the road. A modest house, once in a while, complete with rusty vehicles parked randomly, dots the landscape. A graceful homestead occasionally appears, its curving driveway glideing through an impressive portal up to a handsome dwelling.

The highway is a two-laner, one of those killer highways that I’ve learned to respect. But on a sunlit morning like this, all clear and crisp, a fatal crash seems like a very remote possibility.

Turn right on Highway 102. It’s even skinnier and rougher. Now this is a country highway. Homes sit on their property as well as surprising human enterprise as you drive down the road. Way out here there is a car wash, for cryin’ out loud. Yeah. Somebody put up a two stall car wash in their front yard.

I love that car wash.

And then there is the Tag Agency.

A Tag Agency is where you get your car tags—license plates—and stickers and what not. They are not owned by the State. Private individuals own them. I think they bid for them or something. I’m sure having connections has a lot to do with it.

A Tag Agency in the middle of nowhere. Huh.

I love the way people have just plunked down their businesses out here. And I’m also sure the people here don’t consider it in the middle of nowhere. It’s their neighborhood.

I’m such a city girl. Still learning how to be a country girl.

Anyway, I’m on my way to Jo and Ken’s for brunch. It’s their way of saying thank you for our help with the Democratic Club and the elections (of which we won not one, NOT ONE, state-wide election this year.)

In case you weren’t aware of Oklahoma’s status as a conservative state, I’ll give you a little rundown.

Oklahoma is the only state in the Union which had not one, NOT ONE, county going for Obama. We have two pretty famous United States Senators, James Inhofe and Tom Coburn. They are ridiculed around the country and the world. Keith Olbermann regularly makes them targets on his “Worst Person in the World” segment on his show.

But most people here in Oklahoma love these guys.

James Inhofe is the Senate’s chief global warming denier and homosexual hater and just this past week make a big fuss over not being in a local parade unless it was officially named a Christmas Parade rather than a Holiday Parade. Goddammit! We’re Christians around here!

(So much for the Season of Love and Giving.)

And Tom Coburn. As a practicing physician he sterilized a 20-year-old woman without her permission and tried to cover it up when filing for Medicare fees. He got caught. And nothing happened to him. Nothing.

I think he gets my goat the most because he seems kind of intelligent and sincere. But in my book he is seriously dangerous.

Let me make my case.

This guy regularly holds up the whole Senate because he can, little banty rooster that he is, for one thing or another.

He is famous for his “one vote hold,” and has done the following:

• During the health care debate asked that people pray that a colleague (Senator Byrd, age 92) wouldn’t make it for the vote.
• No more regulation on tobacco.
• No more protection for whistle blowers in the federal government.
• Held up veteran’s benefits.
• Blocked two bills to honor Rachel Carson for her environmental work, calling it “junk science.”
• Votes against protecting the wilderness.
• Is a major personage in The Family, the infamous conglomeration of fundamentalist Christian Senators who live together in a big house and pay low rent and were pretty frisky in their sex lives, John Ensign and Mark Sanford being two of those good Christian men.
• Froze unemployment benefits right before Christmas.

I’ve gone on too long about good old Tom. But he really, really irritates me.

And these folks are what make our Democratic Club the feisty and brave little group that it is. We have a mountain to climb.

So I was on my way to brunch at Jo and Ken’s.

They live on the lake in a beautiful house that they designed and built when they retired. Large windows face out to the deck and lake. High ceilings make the whole house airy and light. They’ve stained the concrete floor a beautiful green-blue and, blue being Jo’s favorite color, have blue glass vases and such in windows and on ledges.

Today a very tall and sparkling Christmas tree with blue and silver ornaments stands in the living room. A sweet little round table, an antique I’m sure, and a new really amazing carved antique buffet table stand in the living room.

Everything is beautiful.

And the food, oh, the food! Cinnamon rolls and pigs in blankets and little quiches and cranberry bread and mimosas and coffee and lots more.

People arrive and talking ensues.

And what do Democrats talk about at brunch?

We talk about the campaign. And the state of the nation. And Republicans.

One of our candidates talks about going door to door and coming upon a woman who claimed that the Communists, years ago, started the Civil Rights movement for the sole purpose of taking over the government. The plan was to get a black man into the presidency and then that would be the beginning of the end of the United States of America.

Yeah. You heard right. There are a lot of people in this state who believe that anti-God Communism is on the march with Obama leading the way. This belief is funneled through the fundamentalist, mostly Pentecostal, churches in the state. Speakers who make a really good living spreading anti-Obama rhetoric come armed with “facts” and preach to these congregations about the dangers of an Obama presidency. And the congregation swallows it whole because it is a matter of faith. After all, the speakers are men of God. It’s very hard to make headway with someone who believes. Rational thought is not part of the process.

Talk about a seriously dangerous situation.

I think about the YouTube clip I saw this week and we talk about it.

Then we talk about the local animal rescue organization. Melissa tells me stories of sweet cats and dogs and their fates. You see, Democrats are people with love in their hearts. Not hate.

I love Democrats.

We talk about unions and how difficult it is to have a strong union in the south and how so many southern states are Right-To-Work states. I think about how people, low information voters, my new favorite designation, consistently vote against their own interests. The “union” is a Communist organization which is trying to drag down America, according to a whole lot of people in this state.

We talk about the homeless problem and how it’s growing in Shawnee. Between 300 and 400 people a week are being fed in the library because it’s now too cold to feed them outside. There is concern in our little group that the homeless drive away what business the downtown gets because of their pandering and smoking and general unkemptness.

There is a bit of a disagreement between us. (After all, we are Democrats!) I, having been homeless, with kids!, have a soft spot in my heart for them and know in my guts that people would be surprised at what kinds of people end up in that situation.

I think this makes our goodhearted crew feel uncomfortable. After all, we are the defenders of the downtrodden and some who find their stand on the homeless being bad for business and others (me) finding that stand vaguely anti-bleeding heart, are at odds. So, once again, there are sides taken and sides defended. A little bit of a rub against each other.

Oh, what the hell. What would a Democratic get-together be without a fiery discussion?

It’s time for me to go. The discussion continues, but I slip quietly over to my jacket and purse, wave a good-bye to the folks who are continuing their conversations, and let myself out.

I get in the car, pull out onto the road, and start back home. My head and heart are full. So is my stomach.

What a great morning.

God. I love Democrats.

Don’t you?

Comments

Comments closed.