A few weeks ago, my wife and I were preparing to go to a book sale. As I dressed, she persuaded me to change the pants I\u2019d put on and wear a different pair of pants. And to wear a different pair of shoes.<\/p>\n
I put on the pants and shoes, then asked her if she thought the shirt I was wearing was OK. She said she thought it was fine.<\/p>\n
At some point, I must have stated the obvious by saying something such as, \u201cIt makes absolutely no difference to me what I wear.\u201d<\/p>\n
My wife then commented, \u201cYou may not know it, but people know who you are and have an image of you.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s easy for me to believe that all over the area I am known and what I am known as is The Liberal. People see me and recognize me. They may not even know my name. But they have a name they use to call me. The Liberal.<\/p>\n
They talk about The Liberal and all the outrageous liberal things he\u2019s writing, saying and doing \u2014 about the way he\u2019s using his elitist bully pulpit to wreck everything that\u2019s good and decent.<\/p>\n
To take a hypothetical example, I imagine a couple talking in the kitchen of their South Lake Charles home. The husband has just returned to the home from his day of labor. He\u2019s filling his wife in on what\u2019s happened to him since he last saw her.<\/p>\n
\u201cI saw The Liberal today,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhere?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the bookstore.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe what?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe bookstore.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe bookstore. What\u2019s that?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBooks-A-Million.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOh, yeah. Lemme guess. He bought a book.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat was it \u2014 The Satanic Bible?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, I had a hard time seeing the book cover. But I saw the word CLASSICS on it in big letters.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cCLASSICS. See, he\u2019s a pseudointellectual. These liberal elitists always want you to think they\u2019re reading some complicated intellectual frou-frou.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI did manage to see the name of the writer. Henry Adams.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHenry Adams. I gotta remember to Google that.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDon\u2019t bother. You know it\u2019s just going to be some leftist bleeding heart academic with the 10,000 dollar words; some guy who calls himself a humanist when he\u2019s really just a socialist.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cA communist?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSame thing.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSocialist \u2026 communist \u2026 same thing. I never can remember that.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I\u00a0 imagine another couple talking in Moss Bluff.<\/p>\n
\u201cI saw The Liberal today.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhere?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIn that yogurt shop Kaitlyn and I were going to. He was eating some food and talking to the guy behind the counter.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat was he eating?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not sure what it was. It looked like a hot fudge sundae.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m surprised he wasn\u2019t eating some kind of froo froo health food yogurt with lots of fruit and nuts.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe kept talking about some friend of his.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI guess some radical friend he knew in one of his old leftist hang-outs like Portland or Berkeley.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, I think it was a friend he has now. Sounded like it was somebody around here.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhaddya mean \u2018around here\u2019?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know. Sounded like his friend lived in this area. Maybe in Lake Charles.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOh great! So now there are two liberals here! We\u2019re moving.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOh, yeah? Well, where are we moving to, big shot?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know. Maybe Iowa. Jennings. Some place that\u2019s really conservative and not just pretend conservative.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo sir! If we\u2019re going to go to all the trouble of moving, we\u2019re not going to move to just some other bump in the road. We\u2019re moving to Baton Rouge at the very least.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBaton Rouge! But baby, you know that place is full of \u2026 \u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cTREY!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWell it is.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t care. I\u2019m not taking the trouble of moving to one more place where the big excitement every week is waiting for a table at Chili\u2019s.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I imagine another couple discussing their day in a comfortable den in a spacious Shell Beach home.<\/p>\n
\u201cI saw The Liberal today.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhere?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWalking down the street. Down Ryan Street. He had his fingers in his ears.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHis fingers in his ears? What in the world?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI guess it was because of the ambulance going down the street.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAw, him\u2019s afwaid him\u2019s goin\u2019 to hurwt his sensitive wiwwle earwdrums. Him\u2019s dewicate!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWalking around in public with his fingers in his ears. Little freak.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, a freak. Was he wearing Birkenstocks?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cUh \u2026 no \u2026 uh \u2026 I \u2026 uh \u2026 I don\u2019t think he can afford \u2018em \u2026 I mean, judging from the way he looked and all.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBut if he could afford to wear them, he would.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo doubt.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s hard to pull yourself up by your bootstraps when you\u2019re wearing Birkenstocks. \u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHa ha. That\u2019s a pretty good one.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
As sorry as I am to say it, I fear I\u2019m sometimes the source of dissention in a relationship. I imagine a wife greeting her husband as he comes home from work to the family home on Lake Street. As soon as his wife utters her usual domestic greeting, the husband tells her his news.<\/p>\n
\u201cI saw The Liberal today.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, what was he doing?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was standing in line at the drugstore, buying some chocolate biscotti. As a great big liberal, he\u2019s probably always telling people how horrible processed junk food is.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSounds like a hypocrite.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIf he weren\u2019t a hypocrite, he\u2019d want to pass laws against junk food, like that mayor in New York. Imagine \u2014government telling people they can\u2019t buy food. Socialist!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cCommunist!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSame thing.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBut dear \u2026 are you really sure he\u2019s a liberal? I mean, he\u2019s always writing such horrible things about Obama.\u201d<\/p>\n
All of a sudden, her husband falls silent. All his features have dramatically altered so that they reflect the feeling of disappointment \u2026 and a little sadness. The wife, slightly scared, says, in a tentative voice,<\/p>\n
\u201cDear \u2026 is anything wrong? Did I say something wrong?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIs it too much for a guy to ask to have a cold beer when he comes home from work?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNo, no, no. Of course not. Now you just go in the living room and sit in your chair. I\u2019ve got the TV turned on to Fox News.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDon\u2019t want Fox News. Want ESPN.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, that\u2019s fine. I put the remote on the arm of your chair. You just watch whatever you want. I\u2019ll bring your Bud lite and put your favorite camo LSU sleeve on it. I\u2019ll be there in just a minute, pumpkin.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
And then, I think there may be times when I bring couples together. I imagine an impatient husband, waiting for his wife to return to the couple\u2019s Kirkman Street apartment. At long last, she\u2019s home.<\/p>\n
\u201cFinally got back from the grocery store. Well, you sure took your time.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAw, don\u2019t be mad at me. I got you something special.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat\u2019s that?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe new Lagniappe.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAw. Good. What\u2019s The Liberal got to say this time? Read it to me.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOK. First headline. \u2018Obama Little Sissy Compared To Putin.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNaw, naw, naw! Skip that one. What\u2019s next?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201c\u2019Jindal Budget Cuts Short-sighted, Cruel.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAh, this is going to be great. Hold on a second. I want to get a fresh beer for this one.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sometimes I wish I could tell people around here that I am The Conservative, and not The Liberal at all. But I just don\u2019t think I could master the conservative ideology \u2014 or any ideology for that matter. I suspect I just don\u2019t have the brainpower for it. And I know I\u2019m not going to spend the time it would take me to get even a facile understanding of the very rudiments of an ideology. I just don\u2019t think it\u2019s in me.<\/p>\n
A few days ago, a guy walked up to me in my yard and asked me if I would give him $10 if he raked the leaves. I told him I didn\u2019t mind the leaves; kind of liked them in fact. But I told him I\u2019d give him a crisp new $20 bill if he just looked at me and told me I had no political ideology of any kind. He just bowed his head and walked away, obviously disappointed.<\/p>\n
My wife\u2019s also told me that I\u2019m like the boy in the back of the crowd who yells out that the emperor has no clothes on. That little boy doesn\u2019t yell out political slogans. He just yells out descriptions of what he sees.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t know. In the end, I\u2019m not sure whether it would be better to be called The Little Boy In The Back Of The Crowd than The Liberal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A few weeks ago, my wife and I were preparing to go to a book sale. As I dressed, she persuaded me to change the pants I\u2019d put on and wear a different pair of pants. And to wear a different pair of shoes. I put on the pants and shoes, then asked her if [&hellip<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1645,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[38,893],"yoast_head":"\n