Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Joe's Tongue Whistle Video

Here is another video of the boys from 11 months ago (Feb. 2011) that didn't make the cut for Debbi's blog. Enjoy.




Sunday, January 1, 2012

My First Election - Not Really


The presidential election of 1996 ended up pitting Bob Dole vs. Bill Clinton. The Republican primary/caucus season that year featured some very colorful characters along with just a few specific memories:






Steve Forbes (AKA: Teeve Torbes)

Phil Gramm (I had his t-shirt)

Bob Dornan (who said, "We've never had a president named 'Bob'")

Arlen Specter (who later became a democrat)

Lamar Alexander (who played the piano and had his catchy "ABC - Alexander beats Clinton" phrase; flannel shirts)

Dick Lugar (who ran one TV add that seemed to imply that he would personally beat up terrorists)

Morry Taylor (I ride a motorcycle!)

And also Pat Buchanan -- the focus of this story.

Somehow I got on the mailing list for the Buchanan campaign. I got several postcards, letters and answering machine messages from them that season, encouraging me to vote for Pat.

The problem?

I was still in high school. The election was in November of '96 and I didn't turn 18 until March of 1997.

I finally got up the courage to answer the phone on one of the calls they made. I even remember which phone, it was the mauve colored phone in the basement (you know, back when phones had cords and stuff). I explained this to the volunteer who answered, and I remember she was kind of speechless. She ended up just saying, "Oh." and politely ending the call.