Many years ago, people in my small home town tried to get me to run in politics. I thought about it and then as a final decision maker, I went to talk to a man, who played in politics all his life. It was the trigger that made my decision…
I asked him several questions over some beers, as we sat on his front porch. He had a few extra minutes before he was off and knocking on doors to gather votes for a pet project of his…
Question 1.) Do you believe your lies?
Question 2.) Do the lies bother you?
Question 3.) Does the money feel the same when you spend it?
I remember he laughed, he was an old friend of mine, then he looked serious and said, “If you ask such questions, then you are not a politician!”
Then he said, “I have a little spot in my brain that I put the lies and then as I talk to people, I access that spot. I believe what I tell you, for there is no other way to be a politician.”
Then he said, “The answer to your questions are this, yes I believe in my lies, no they do not bother me, and I live high on the hog, on your money, I help tax you with.”
Then as he thought, he said, “To be a politician is the same as to be the undertaker in town that everyone knows, but no one trusts, yet we all smile and agree, that no one else wants the job!”
With that he drained his beer and asked me to lock his house up when I finished my beer. Then he was off down the road and whistling a happy tune, a tune that I am sure he kept in that part of the brain, that he stored all the lies in his life in…
I knew that I could not be a politician and I knew that I just really disliked politicians. I never saw him again as a friend after that. He soon left the small town, as he raised up in the ranks and is in the upper politics within the Missouri political system now. Lives in a huge mansion and is worth millions…
Last time I saw him at a huge banquet for the governor, he said, “I sold my soul and can not find it to even buy it back!”
* * * * * * * * * *
I realize that my soul been wounded, burned, crushed, and torn. It also has bled, weeped, and sang the blues, but with all that, it has sung, soared, and rejoiced over many things also. The main fact is that I still have my soul and even through all that I have done and been, I have hung on to it, “Through Hell and High Water!”
Was not easy at times…
Posted by Kyle Keeton
Windows to Russia…
Flesch-Kincaid: 85…