How do you introduce politics to your children? I can only tell you how I became aware of politics. It was the 1960 presidential election. My parents supported John F. Kennedy. My father was a member of the machinist union. My mother was catholic. They supported John F. Kennedy, but they supported him for different reasons.I supported John F. Kennedy because my parents did. John F. Kennedy was my introduction to politics.
Now, as an adult, I know very little about politics (and what I do know I wish I did not know). But I think a successful Dry Farmer must at least have strong opinions about politics...whether he really knows anything about politics. At the age of six I was old enough to at least ask a few questions. When I asked my father about the election he told me that Kennedy was for progress. He told me that the Republicans, well they were not about progress...he said they were about going back to a time before we had electricity. I enjoyed having electricity.
I became a Kennedy supporter. I went with my parents to the local Union Hall and stuffed envelopes with Kennedy fliers and posters. I still remember the smell of donuts and coffee in the tile-floored, austere basement meeting room. I knew I was a part of something important. I was helping to make sure we kept our electricity.
My father worked in a refinery. He was a hard worker but had only an eighth-grade education. My mom received her GED while I was in high school. My father believed that experience was the best education...and so, while we lived in town during my first few years of elementary school, by the time I was in third grade we had moved out to the farm. My father's view was that raising children on a farm was a better way for them to gain valuable life skills.
But my introduction to politics came before the farm. I don't really know a lot about John F. Kennedy. He is a mystical figure in my past because the memory of helping in his election is so vivid. Maybe the choice is different today (that is, to keep electricity or get rid of it)...or maybe, in a way, it is the same story.
It is whatever story you tell yourself...to support your opinion, your view, or your candidate...
