Dad’s love of words

I’ve written many times before about Dad’s love of books. But he also was fond of speeches. As a great lover of history, he followed politics fairly closely, even if he was often disgusted by the actions of certain politicians. Tonight is the vice presidential debate and one of my earlier exposures to politics was watching the Reagan-Mondale debate on TV with Dad. I would have been 10 at the time, just old enough to think I should have opinion. As it turns out, the only opinion I had was one of sheer boredom.

But Dad watched the debate with great interest and sounded off with distaste when he heard something he disagreed with. As I’ve mentioned before, Dad was a Democrat but I think he had a certain begrudging respect for Reagan’s ability to deliver memorable lines and even inject a bit of humor into dry affairs like political debates.

It’s interesting that age is an issue between the two current V.P. candidates and age was an issue also back in 1984. The more things change, the more things stay the same.