By now we’ve shifted from the stories of misery at the voting polls and Hurricane Sandy to the juicy Washington sex scandal. I will admit to being mesmerized by the bizarre details that come to light daily that have apparently caused the downfall of General Petraeus.
Meanwhile, very little airtime is being given to the sex scandal of a Brig. General in Ft. Bragg who is accused of sexual misconduct with the women under his command. I can’t help but wonder why this has seen so little news coverage. I could find nothing on the internet past 11/6, but hear little blurbs now and then on NPR news.
But back to the voting polls. When I arrived at 3:30 PM on voting day, there were hundreds of people in line facing a 3+ hour wait.
It so happened I was reading Rod Stewart’s biography, so that kept me entertained until the sun went down. Darn, and I was just at the point where Rod and Jeff Beck were parting company and Rod was going out on his own. Then there was just standing….moving five feet at a time ever half hour or so.
We privileged Americans don’t often relish standing in lines, and will usually just leave, but I was heartened to see at least 100 people behind me as I neared the entrance to the place where I would mark my ballot.
The main reason I am writing about this old news is that about 45 minutes before it was my turn, suddenly a woman appeared with stacks of pepperoni pizzas. She was a worker, but said she didn’t know who had purchased them. She just said a lady showed up with all the pizzas and asked that they be given out to those of us in line. There was plenty for everybody. I’m here to tell you that that piece of pizza was one of the best I have ever tasted. The mood in the crowd was lifted immeasurably by this random act of kindness.
Whoever you are, I would like to thank you for that marvelous respite for we voters who hadn’t thought to bring a bag lunch. (Some had the foresight to bring a chair – not me).
After the sun went down and the line was moving glacially slow, the only thing that kept me there was the memory of a TV movie called “Iron Jawed Angels” about the suffragettes who fought for the right of women to vote so many decades ago. They suffered unspeakable indignities so that we could move along a line with our neighbors and be a part of what color our state would end up.
Now, back to the sex scandals. You boomers and above who are reading this will probably remember the first one that dominated our newspapers and airwaves. In 1974, Wilbur Mills, (D-Ark.) the powerful head of the House Ways and Means Committee saw his power eroded when, according to the New York Times, he was involved in an incident in which a striptease dancer who performed under the stage name Fanne Foxe, the Argentine Firecracker, jumped out of his car and waded into the Tidal Basin beside the Jefferson Memorial.
Mr. Mills blamed his struggle with alcoholism for the incident. Foxe later changed her stage name to “The Tidal Basin Bombshell.”
Two years later, Wayne Hays, (D-Ohio) was involved in a very juicy sex scandal with a woman named Elizabeth Ray. The Washington Post broke the story quoting Elizabeth Ray, Hays's former secretary, saying that Hays hired her on his staff, and later gave her a raise as staff of the House Administration Committee for two years to serve as his mistress. Ostensibly a secretary, Ray admitted: "I can't type. I can't file. I can't even answer the phone." She even "let a reporter listen in as the Ohio congressman told her on the phone that his recent marriage (to another former secretary) would not affect their arrangement."
So, all this scandal is nothing we boomers haven’t grown up around. When this current dust settles, we’ll go back to our regular concerns about paying the mortgage and health insurance premiums. But, mixed among all our concerns, I’m confident there will be random acts of kindness to remind us of the good that is the American way.
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