Summer Nights with My Dad

In Walla Walla where I grew up the summer days get pretty hot. The problem was the night, and how the nigh-time stayed pretty hot too. Those were the days when central air conditioning was not the norm in our neighborhood. That made most of the month of July and about half of August kind of miserable. But by the time mid-August hit the days began to shorten and darkness brought merciful cooling to the evening air. Of all the times I remember most vividly growing up, the summer nights are the best of those memories. There was our house, my aunt and uncle’s house, and my grandparents’ house clustered together with gravel driveways separating the homes. A single large rectangular yard actually joined our house to my grandparents’ house. Each of the three yards for these houses had its own unique purpose for our constant games. Our back yard was the football field. My cousin’s side yard was the baseball diamond and, the driveway and front of a garage was the basketball court. Smaller games like badminton took place in our aunt and uncle’s back yard. The entire complex could be converted into a bicycle race-track, circumnavigating all the houses, or becoming a giant layout for hide-n-seek. Across the road were more relative's homes and large fields, garages and barns with the opportunity for expansion of things to do, and places to do them on a summer night.

Our routine was very predictable. My dad would get home from work at 5:40 p.m. Dinner took place immediately upon his arrival. By 6:15 the meal was over and clean up occurred. Then it was out the door. Aside from the activities and games my cousins, and my sister, and I engaged in, my clearest memories are of what the "grown ups" did almost every one of those summer nights. By 6:30 p.m. there was a gathering of the adults in one of those back yards. This happened most evenings. The times when it didn’t happen were the exception. Lawn chairs were placed on the grass in a roughly circular pattern. All the men smoked, so my grandfather with his Roi-Tan Presidents, and my dad and uncle with their cigarettes, and my uncle Jake with his pipe and Sir Walter Raleigh tobacco settled in for conversation. My grandmother, my aunt Virginia, and my mom were there too. No one wanted to be in the house until the cooling began and windows could be thrown open to an evening breeze. The conversations were wide-ranging. It seemed very few topics were out-of-bounds, but of course there was  nothing that could have gotten more than a PG-13 rating. Politics, religion, business, the price of Sweet Onions,  tales of the work-day, neighborhood gossip- it all happened here.

I found these conversations fascinating, particularly the political talk . They discussed (and argued) a number of political topics ranging from a local County Commissioner’s quirky behavior to national and international policy. My dad was what you might call an “Eisenhower” Republican. He was quite literally a Main Street Republican. He didn’t like the whole “Kennedy thing”, and he had a healthy distrust of big government. My uncle was pretty much in that same conservative mold. My grandfather, on the other hand, was an Italian immigrant and a Democrat all the way. As my grandfather got older, his opinion wasn’t held in much regard, and he was drowned out by more forceful voices. The entire group was staunchly Catholic, so church matters were discussed as well. I learned a great deal just listening and occasionally asking a question. There were times when I was far more interested in listening to the adult conversation than doing the many things I could have been doing instead. It was the sixties, and there were major things happening in politics and current events. I particularly looked forward to those after-dinner forums on days when something big was going on. There were no shortages of opinions in this gathering.

It was during these years I was also learning more about the world around me. My parents had us attend Catholic school, but even the church was in upheaval at the time- Vatican II, you know. It was a time of explosive new ideas all around us. Naturally the events of those times lent themselves to great opportunities to learn and become interested in the politics of the day.  I believe these summer nights watching and listening to my dad and the others was the beginning of my own deep interest in politics. My dad was a knowledgeable guy and fairly up-to-date with current events. I don’t think he ever achieved his full intellectual potential, but he did know basic civics and government, and he knew where he stood on the political spectrum. Poor guy, he used to become irritated to know that his Republican vote was probably going to be cancelled out by my mother’s (immigrant’s daughter) Democratic vote.  

When the sun began to set on those summer nights we all retired to our own houses. Usually the TV would come on and the house was laid open to night air flowing through a screen door. Every four years my dad and I had the special treat of watching the  major Party Conventions in those summer nights. My first awareness of this crazy ritual was 1964. All I can remember was the manic celebrations of the Democrats knowing that LBJ was a shoe-in for President-funny hats, balloon drops and all. At that time we were all still deeply affected by the assassination of President Kennedy. Johnson was building “the Great Society” and they seemed pretty secure about the election outcome. Nonetheless my dad patiently explained this “Convention” business to me in language a 10 year old could understand. He had a little tougher time explaining the Republican convention and the darkness of Barry Goldwater’s bid.

 Four years later “the sixties” were in full bloom and I was old enough to know what I was seeing. He didn’t need to explain as we watched the conventions unfold. First were the Republicans and the mechanics of the roll-call votes from the various states. I think Nixon got it on the second ballot- but had shocked everyone by picking Agnew for VP. I was a bit amused by the elaborate and endless naming of the states by the State Party Chairmen: “the great and illustrious state of Blah, home of the blah-blah, and proud blah-blah-blah boldly and enthusiastically casts its 20 votes for the next blah of the United States (shortened version). On it went- but the news men of the time were also carefully explaining all the behind-the-scenes politicking that was common at the time. Then we had real journalists like Cronkite, Sevareid, Brinkley, and Smith to tell us the truth. Before the Democratic convention of ‘68, George Wallace had been shot, Martin Luther King Jr. had been assassinated, and Robert F. Kennedy had been murdered on his inevitable road to the White House, all in the few months just before the convention. My dad and I watched in disbelief as the Chicago convention became a shameful spectacle of violence and mayhem.  He and I were rooting for different sides; me rooting for the protesters and him rooting for Daly’s police. He liked order and I favored change. I think it got a bit muddled in my dad's mind when the violence moved inside the hall and we watched as security henchmen did their best to control rowdy delegates and then beat up Dan Rather on live TV. No one could understand that. Humphrey came out of the convention a wounded warrior, the Party was severely damaged- and we got Nixon in November. But my dad was happy with the outcome.

1972 was the last of those summer nights with backyard debates and Conventions that actually made news. I went off to college right after the Conventions. The inept McGovern never had a chance against the entrenched and devious Nixon who gave us Watergate and generations of skeptics that followed. I never experienced those summer nights learning about politics with my dad again. By 1976 I was married and off on my own. I miss those conversations and arguments. Talking about things with real people is a great way to learn.

I also miss the time when political Conventions were an opportunity to see events being formed before our eyes. News got made, and decisions were made at these gatherings- and it was something to see. Speeches were important because they were more than pre-packaged stump speeches. Both Parties have now turned an event of substance into a four-day infomercial. The commercial TV networks quit covering them except for an hour or so a night. I don’t blame them. There is little to see. The platform is pre-packaged, the VP Candidate has already been chosen, the speeches have all been heard before, and the outcome is settled months beforehand, now that (almost) every state has a primary. The entire process has become shallow and empty. I suppose young kids are going to have to learn about how government and politics works in a different way than I did. It is a most worthwhile endeavor to teach our children how we’re governed- it’s how we manage ourselves as a people. I hope in this new tech-media reality, parents will take the time on a summer night to teach their children about our government and our way of life. With the sniping and hate-filled rhetoric all around us, parents must show their children what is important and how this all works. Summer nights with my dad, holding backyard debates was my way to learn and I'm grateful I had that. As I got older and joined the debate, my dad and I rarely agreed, but there is value in disagreement too. We grow by exploring issues,testing our thoughts and ideas, and discovering our own beliefs.

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