I waited for Leigh and her daughter just outside the train station alongside A’s Coliseum. Hundreds of fans streamed through the corridor and up on to the caged footbridge that leads into the ballpark. Beside me were a couple of uniformed BART cops, keeping an eye out for scalpers.
A woman passed by and asked one of them, “Why aren’t your flags at half mast? For Reagan?” The bigger officer said he didn’t know, and the woman kept going, seemingly disappointed. He waited til she was gone and turned to his partner, saying, “That guy never did anything for me.”
He was a big, pink-faced guy with a shorn head, looked like your typical ex-jock cop. I would have pegged him for an ignorant Republican, but boy was I wrong.
“Reagan busted the unions, sent the deficit into the trillions. I don’t get all the grief over him. Never did a thing for me, man.” His partner, a black guy, just smirked and didn’t say anything. “Am I getting myself in trouble?” the first officer said with a smile, noticing people like me listening in.
A lady standing next to me assured him that she had no problem with what he was saying. We all had a nice chuckle.
Leigh showed up and we went into the park. Got some dollar dogs, settled into our view level seats that sheltered us from the wind. The Oakland A’s went on to rout Cincinnati for the third straight night, racking up seventeen runs, including a grand slam by Miller. Good times.
So I guess I’m not a jinx in this ballpark after all.
YAY I miss the Bay Area.
WANNA SWITCH?!
nooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
PLZ? I’ll throw in one dead president, slightly used? NO CHARGE DEAL OF A LIFETIME
So awesome.
I was on the subway last week and overheard a motorman and another transit worker, both older, kinda grizzled working-class guys, exactly the types you might peg as big “kill ’em all and let God sort ’em out” Bush supporters, both enthusiastically bashing the “president.”
I think it’s called “trickle down” contempt.
Re: Republicans
Back in the summer of 2001 I was in South Carolina working on a project on a hunting club. The locals I met and got to know were four WWII era, white, creationist, gun-toting, racist good ol’ boys. You’d think they’d all be Republicans, but no….three of them had voted for Gore, and they heckled the fourth guy mercilessly about having voted for Bush. The fourth guy, in turn, expressed deep contrition over his Bush vote, and wished he had voted differently. You can’t judge a book by its cover.