O! The Joy!

" O! the joy. " *

* From the journal of William Clark of the Lewis and Clark expedition after many, many months of trials and tribulations finally reaching their goal....the Pacific Ocean.

For many of us, the re-election of Barack Obama was a welcome outcome to yesterday's election. And to some degree, the election of the more liberal candidate was a tradition in this family. 

The debate among the older generation of  Finnish-Americans was supposed to be whether you were a Leninist or a Trotskyite. Grandpa Eli was at least a socialist.  When Sandy found some socialist lapel pins in his attic, Dad (Vake) said “You can have them; just don’t wear them to school.” Eli had only a small personal library, but I saw one volume in his house that was the writings of  American socialist Eugene Debs, printed in Finnish.

The sons of Eli were divided in their political allegiances.  My impression is that Uncle Gene was a Democrat—but David or Sam, correct me if I’m wrong. Johnnie was a conservative, Goldwater Republican. He and Vake, who was two years younger, were very close, but  argued politics so vociferously that Mom (Milly) ordered them to quit talking about it, to preserve their friendship.

The next generations of our family are divided, but at least some of us are  most assuredly Democrats:  Jon and Barbara, Sam, myself, Susan Buckhart, and (I’m pretty sure) my sons. David is an interesting case:  He was born to be a D, but was heavily involved in R politics in New York.  If only that darned Richard Nixon hadn’t gotten himself involved in Watergate, David had just about greased the skids for his becoming a White House aid. I’ve told him that it serves him right for changing parties. But now, he has to curse himself for caring while he marks his ballot mostly for Ds. As for the other relatives—Well, that’s the beauty of a secret ballot, isn’t it?