Entry tags:
fear :: josh (crossposted to ![[profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
drabblemania)
Kennedy said 'we have nothing to fear but fear itself.' Oh, no, never mind. That was Roosevelt. Kennedy said 'Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.' I get them mixed up, sometimes. But I always liked that saying, about fear.
So did my mom. She was a die-hard democrat in a family of republicans that in some cases were so right wing they made Rush Limbaugh look positively liberal. My uncle Dan, for example - three hundred pounds of baby-seal-eating bigoted conservative right. I remember family reunions: my mom, who's five-three and about one-thirty soaking wet, would get into it with uncle Dan and she'd leap to her feet and jab her finger into his face like it was a legitimate form of punctuation. He just laughed it off - she was a woman, which meant in his mind she was really only good for making babies and lunch - but I remember. Mom went to Wellesley, she was captain of the debate team. And a hell of a lot smarter than uncle Dan.
He never scared me, but in retrospect he should have. My aunt Marian walked into so many doors when I was growing up I lost count. Probably because I was his favorite son - even though I wasn't, strictly speaking, his biological son. He had two little girls - Rachel and Kaylie - who were both younger than me. But he was big with manly men things. Watching ESPN and drinking beer and eating cheetos and trying to see how many multiples of his own weight he could bench press. Thinking about it now I can't believe I was so damned ignorant of the whole thing, the way he was and how twisted his thought processes were.
He would never have voted for Kennedy, of course, or FDR. Even though the whole family's Catholic. I guess religion doesn't always soothe political divisions. But my mom did. She saw him give his inaugural address and cried her eyes out.
Now that I think about it, she was always trying to tell me the same thing, that I had nothing to fear but fear itself.
The difference is that now I'm trying to listen.
So did my mom. She was a die-hard democrat in a family of republicans that in some cases were so right wing they made Rush Limbaugh look positively liberal. My uncle Dan, for example - three hundred pounds of baby-seal-eating bigoted conservative right. I remember family reunions: my mom, who's five-three and about one-thirty soaking wet, would get into it with uncle Dan and she'd leap to her feet and jab her finger into his face like it was a legitimate form of punctuation. He just laughed it off - she was a woman, which meant in his mind she was really only good for making babies and lunch - but I remember. Mom went to Wellesley, she was captain of the debate team. And a hell of a lot smarter than uncle Dan.
He never scared me, but in retrospect he should have. My aunt Marian walked into so many doors when I was growing up I lost count. Probably because I was his favorite son - even though I wasn't, strictly speaking, his biological son. He had two little girls - Rachel and Kaylie - who were both younger than me. But he was big with manly men things. Watching ESPN and drinking beer and eating cheetos and trying to see how many multiples of his own weight he could bench press. Thinking about it now I can't believe I was so damned ignorant of the whole thing, the way he was and how twisted his thought processes were.
He would never have voted for Kennedy, of course, or FDR. Even though the whole family's Catholic. I guess religion doesn't always soothe political divisions. But my mom did. She saw him give his inaugural address and cried her eyes out.
Now that I think about it, she was always trying to tell me the same thing, that I had nothing to fear but fear itself.
The difference is that now I'm trying to listen.
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One of the favorite bits of yours that I've come across so far, though I loved most everything else as well.
Is this going to be a character that you go more into depth with?
~Sasa
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http://www.livejournal.com/users/phinnia/871169.html
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Danke schoen! (no, I really can't spell. English or German. ~le sigh~)
~Sasa
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Damn you for turning him into Hitler. *grumble*
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That aside, though... it's very well written. :)
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