Day 2 camp diary – O Captain, My Captain!

I got two points for composing a sentence in French just now on my Duolingo Ap. Its 2 in the morning and I crawled out of bed unable to sleep. All I could do was think about the column I had just sent into the Reader for Thursday’s issue. I’m quite pleased with it but its been hard to get the subject out of my head. So I got up to study french and change the subject. But damn Duolingo. It offered me two points to write a reply to the following question. I won’t tell you what either the Q or my A is but there is one huge clue in my reply. If you are curious you can copy it and put it in a French-to-English translator online.

Décris le métier de tes rêves.

J’ai rêvé d’être élu président des États-Unis pour que je puisse prendre ma retraite Donald Trump.

The column will likely be my last until after the primary election unless, of course, I catch lightning in a bottle. Part of Day 1 and 2 of the campaign has been spent trying to figure out the mechanics of accepting donations. I have an unorthodox idea but it needs some tweaking.

But most of campaign day 2 was spent contemplating my hero Abe Lincoln and writing about him in my final Reader column until after my campaign comes to an end. Lincoln was the soul of my Reader piece and that spirit extended to my duties as a Grandfather in the afternoon. My older Grandson had finished a 2-month long poetry unit and families were invited to hear his classmates at a poetry slam. For the occasion we were asked to bring poetry that we liked. Claudia used to read poetry in competition and picked out a famous Burke Poem about the eyes of a tiger burning bright. I printed out Oh Captain, My Captain by Walt Whitman written in memoriam to the fallen President. Owing to my intense concentration on my column I found the Whitman poem far more compelling than I had expected. I teared up thinking about how broken up the poet, who had nursed broken soldiers back to health, was on learning of Abe’s assassination. I’m getting waaaay too sentimental in my dotage.

I’ll confess that as I wrote my column I had the huffy phrase “…blue-collar, common-sense conservative…” echoing in my head. It was part of the reply given by Pete Stauber’s spokesman when the News Tribune asked her about my criticisms of her candidate:

“Pete has been campaigning across the district for a year and we are seeing our blue-collar, common-sense conservative message resonating with voters in the 8th — Republicans, independents and Democrats alike,” said Stauber campaign spokesperson Caroline Tarwid.

My column doesn’t mention anything about our campaign but I hope it radiates the essence of what it means to be an American as our founders projected their dreams for the future in the Declaration of Independence. Abraham Lincoln lifted up that spirit high in his Gettysburg Address and turbo charged it for our nation’s better angles who, sad to say, seem to be in hiding these days.

Whatever else it accomplishes not writing my Reader columns every other week will free up a day to campaign or to blog or to study French. Que sera, sera.

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