Not that I don’t RIDICULOUSLY miss my Dad, too, because I do. But, Mom & I had developed a great ability to talk politics with absolutely NO hurt feelings whatsoever.
I think it is because we both discovered that we had a lot more in common politically than either of us might had thought possible when I was younger.* That, and she was able to impart a LOT of insight as how the exec branch affected her job**, which was more telling than any press conference could be as to how any administration would be doing things to affect the country.
While I do have a small handful of people that I feel mildly comfortable talking politics with, it’s just not the same. Maybe part of it was knowing that even if I joined up with the Anarchists, Mom would be happy that I found a party I could identify with and support and she wouldn’t give me shit about it. That, and she’s probably nicely quiz me on their platform, if nothing else if to see if perhaps they were a good fit for her as well. ;)
At least little bro & I seem to be running on the same wavelength, so I have someone I can rant to about various political things without worrying about upsetting anyone. But it was always fun to have a partner in righteous indignation on Friday-night-pizza&beer&ranting-with-Mom night. (She always won on the “whose employer is more screwed up” game every week.)
I think she’d be tickled as hell that Obama is a viable candidate. She moved from CA to GA as a little kid and discovered segregation - and being a little one, didn’t understand it one bit. (And regularly drank from the “colored” fountains because there was no line and couldn’t understand why it made a damn bit of difference.) I think she would have liked to see the progression from separate fountains, schools, and everything else to candidate for the Presidency of the United States. Hell, all I know is what she told me over the years and *I* think it’s cool as shit that we’ve managed to come this far in a relatively short period of time.
I still wish she was around so we could crack a couple Guinnesses and split a pizza and solve the problems of the world on Fridays.
* She genuinely wondered where the hell I could go politically, given that folks tend to get more conservative as they get older, and as a senior in HS, she described me as “one step right of Attila the Hun” - it was delivered with love, but also accurate as I was leaning fairly right at the time. I think she’d like the fact that I discovered and have lovingly embraced my inner hippie.
**The most basic description of her job: Government HR rules and regs. Fine line between fairness to employees, screwing employees and protecting the gov’t from it’s employees.
