One Less Reader

I’m back as promised (or threatened) after taking a few days off to mark the passing of my mother, who died on Saturday. She was 93 years, eight months and two weeks old. She never had cancer, heart disease or even a hint of dementia. Just the steady accumulation of stuff that goes wrong after awhile. She signed her own paper work on Thursday morning and she was gone by Saturday evening after spending a couple days surrounded by family. It’s possible she may have decided she just couldn’t take another day of family visits.

All-in-all, not a bad life or a bad way to go out. I’m more grateful than sad.

My Mom died where she lived her whole life, on the South Side of Milwaukee and West Allis, where I grew up. In fact, it’s that weird mashup — growing up among conservative Catholic Kennedy Democrats and then becoming enough of a liberal to get elected Mayor of Madison — that’s at the center of YSDA. I’ve never quite abandoned either the blue collar conservatives or the quiche-eating liberals. I’m somewhere in between.

I have enough West Allis left in me to believe that if liberals would just drop the pretenses and the phony virtue signaling they could at least partially reconnect to the blue collar folks they say they want to help. But most importantly, they have to stop wanting to help them. If you don’t get that, you’re hopeless.

After all, these are the same kind of people who split their votes between George McGovern and George Wallace in 1972 and who voted for Barack Obama and then for Donald Trump. They’re less ideological than they are aware that the system was not set up to benefit them. They’ll respond to anybody who respects their values of hard-work and fairness and who doesn’t talk down to them.

Though there were times when she was plenty frustrated with liberals, I’m pretty sure that my Mom never missed an election and never voted for a Republican. One of my earliest memories (it was probably the 1962 mid-terms) is going into a voting booth with my mother where she allowed me to push the levers and then, with her help, push the big lever that snapped in the votes and magically opened the curtain. I’m sure she voted for McGovern in ’72 and if you could do that you could vote for any Democrat. She had her frustrations with the Catholic Church too, but she didn’t become a Unitarian either. It was the same thing.

And one last thing. My Mom was a faithful YSDA reader and, like you, she agreed with me “some of the time.” With her passing our ranks decline. Maybe you can suggest us to a new reader who can take the place of Deloris Cieslewicz. I know my Mom will bless you for helping out her son. God knows he needs it.

Have a good weekend.