“Jimbo, where do Republicans come from?” <\/p>\n
The question was posed by Max, age five.\u00a0 We were on our way to the High Temple of Dinosaur Fossils in New Haven: Yale’s Peabody Museum.\u00a0 Sometimes there are long breaks between questions and answers in our travels.<\/p>\n
I was hoping for a dinosaur related question… like, “If a Tyrannosaurus Rex and a Triceratops got into a fight — who would win?”\u00a0 I guess I should be thankful.\u00a0 At least he didn’t ask, “Where do babies come from?”\u00a0 But knowing Chris and Beth (Max’s parents), he probably already\u00a0knows where babies come from.\u00a0 Something that took me thirty years to figure out.”<\/em><\/p>\n “Where do Republicans come from?\u00a0 Did you ask?”<\/p>\n “Yes, Jimbo.”<\/p>\n What brought this up?\u00a0 Republicans?\u00a0 Pretty impressive.\u00a0 This kid has a great\u00a0vocabulary.\u00a0 That’s Chris and Beth.\u00a0 Max already has a better vocabulary than half the adults I know. *UCH*\u00a0 Cornell Winston (no relation) for my\u00a0Ninth Grade English!\u00a0 We had twenty vocab words to learn each weekend… spell correctly and use in a sentence.\u00a0 I can remember it like yesterday.\u00a0 I hated it.\u00a0 “Plethora.”\u00a0 Who the hell can use it in a sentence?\u00a0 Or what syllable to stress when saying it?\u00a0 I should ask Max if he knows what it means; but he would probably correct my pronunciation…<\/em><\/p>\n I think\u00a0I heard someone using “plethora” in a sentence on <\/em>Face the Nation or <\/em>Meet the Press.\u00a0 Some “expert” referred to a “plethora” of social and financial woes facing this country.\u00a0 He could have used “myriad” or “shit load” or a “quagmire of nightmarish complexity”.\u00a0 But no.\u00a0 We got “plethora”.\u00a0 I bet he pronounced it wrong!\u00a0 Mr. Smarty-Pants-in-a-coat-and-tie-on-Sunday-morning!<\/em><\/p>\n Gag me with a spoon.<\/em><\/p>\n You know, if Max asks me where babies come from, I’m going to tell him “Costco Aisle 3, behind the display of synthetic Native American sweat lodges!”<\/em><\/p>\n “Do you mean where do they live?\u00a0 Or how did they get their start?”<\/p>\n I think my question caught him off balance.\u00a0 I could have simply replied that it was the Political Party of reform founded in the mid-nineteenth century… that Abraham Lincoln was its “spiritual father”… and that Lincoln is probably turning in his grave over how far his reform minded Party has plummeted.<\/em><\/p>\n “Jimbo… No.\u00a0 Where do they come from?\u00a0 Are there any in Hingham?”<\/p>\n Maybe Chris and\/or Beth are closet Republicans and he is thinking of “outing” them?\u00a0 Or maybe he’s<\/u> the closet Republican and he is embarrassed by his parents’ liberal views.\u00a0 Maybe he is just trolling for kindred souls in Hingham?<\/em><\/p>\n “OH… I thought that you meant — do they come from the Triassic, Jurassic or the Cretaceous?”<\/p>\n Look… we’re going to the Peabody, right?\u00a0 Let’s get the kid focused!<\/em><\/p>\n “Jimbo… can we go to the Gift Shop first?”<\/p>\n Back on track!\u00a0 Still, this Republican stuff shouldn’t be ignored.\u00a0 Maybe his Pre-K program had a “civics” section?\u00a0 When I was his age the reigning Republican was Dwight Eisenhower.\u00a0 Back then I didn’t think of him as a Republican.\u00a0 To me he was a bald guy who smiled a lot and\u00a0played golf in a shirt with a little alligator embroidered on it.\u00a0 It looked like being President was a pretty good job.<\/em><\/p>\n If Max asks me where dinosaurs come from that will be easy… eggs!\u00a0 Or eggs from California!<\/em><\/p>\n “Gift shop?\u00a0 Sure.\u00a0 But the Peabody Museum Gift Shop has a\u00a0ten minute rule.\u00a0 And its strictly enforced.\u00a0 If you haven’t selected something in ten minutes they make you leave… and<\/em> they keep your money.”<\/p>\n Republicans must come from\u00a0eggs.\u00a0 Eggs or pods… like the kind from <\/em>Invasions of the Body Snatchers.\u00a0 Hah!\u00a0 And I know where it begins!\u00a0 At Mason’s Fresh Farm Market on Route 25 in Monroe, CT.\u00a0 The fresh produce is merely camouflage for their true purpose.\u00a0 They grow plants in terra cotta pots.\u00a0 Look to the left on the far side of their house… you can see the staging areas.\u00a0 Two different levels covering about a half a football field.\u00a0 The young plants are in smaller pots on level one, then they are transferred to bigger pots on level two prior to distribution.\u00a0 Each pot is individually hooked up\u00a0to a network of tubes.\u00a0 For water? Fertilizer?\u00a0 Or something more dastardly?\u00a0 Yeah, they’re hooked up like those terrifying plant-like seed pods in <\/em>Invasion of the Body Snatchers!\u00a0 What a film.\u00a0 Dana Wynter expressing fear, “I don’t want to live in a world without love or grief or beauty”. Sure, Kevin McCarthy running down the road trying in vain to warn people.\u00a0 “They’re here already!\u00a0 You’re next!” His message being ignored. Well, what do you expect from California’s citizenry?\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n “What’s your favorite dinosaur Max?\u00a0 Mine is the Triceratops!”<\/p>\n “Jimbo… ‘tri’ means three.”<\/p>\n This kid is too smart.\u00a0 If he starts\u00a0reciting Thomas Aquinas in Latin, I’m pulling over, giving him the keys and walking home.<\/em><\/p>\n Yes,yes.\u00a0 I’m sure of if now.\u00a0 It’s Mason’s.\u00a0 That’s where it starts.\u00a0 I drive by that place first thing in the morning before<\/u> sun rise.\u00a0 Sometimes I see a light coming from the basement of that creepy house that sits between their produce stand and their “growing fields.”<\/em>\u00a0I bet that’s where they produce the special cultures and yeasts for making Republicans.\u00a0 Then the raw materials are\u00a0dried and stored in grain sacks marked “greed”, “intolerance” and “patriotism on the sleeve” and then they put it into their water supply.<\/em><\/p>\n “Jimbo… are we almost there yet?”<\/p>\n “Yep… we’re in New Haven.”<\/p>\n And you think that geranium or chrysanthemum in a terra cotta pot\u00a0is innocent… don’t you?\u00a0 These plants are carefully endowed with all the necessities for making true Republicans… simple house plants capable of taking over body, mind and soul!\u00a0 Then these insidious plants are distributed to an unaware public.\u00a0 Transported to places like Greenwich, then to Andover, then to Yale, Skull & Bones, then to Texas… and<\/u> then to the White House!!!<\/em><\/p>\n “They’re here already!\u00a0 You’re next!”<\/p>\n “Who’s here already Jimbo?\u00a0 The dinosaurs?”<\/p>\n “No, Max.\u00a0 And if you want to find Republicans… go to Costco, Aisle 3.\u00a0 There is a plethora<\/em> of them there… just behind the geranium display.”<\/p>\n “Is plethora like a dinosaur nest?”<\/p>\n “Not really.\u00a0 And remember… just ten minutes in the gift shop.”<\/p>\n Hey!\u00a0He didn’t correct my pronunciation. Haa-hoo!<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" “Jimbo, where do Republicans come from?” The question was posed by Max, age five.\u00a0 We were on our way to the High Temple of Dinosaur Fossils in New Haven: Yale’s Peabody Museum.\u00a0 Sometimes there are long breaks between questions and … Continue reading