My Father Voted Republican

North Miami Beach, FL May 3, 2002
A.H. Schectman

THINKING ALLOWED

Essays on Issues, Ideas and Reflections on the Times. Published now and
then. Opinions pro or con are welcome.

MY FATHER VOTED REPUBLICAN

My father came to this country when he was 9 years old and went
out to Omaha, Nebraska and came back a mid-westerner. He also voted
Republican and never talked with me about it or any thing political except
for World War II. He worried about me because I volunteered for the Army
and grew a mustache until I came home and then decided to keep it.

I've pieced together an explanation because it was an anomaly for
that time - considering our family sentiments about the depression and the
impact of the Roosevelt presidency. My father bought into the conservatism
of the west and the ethos of the small business man which he was. He and my
mother ran a small "mom and pop" delicatessen. They did moderately well
until the advent of a "supermarket" a few blocks away showed the way of the
future. I never tried hard at all to learn the counter trade although I
still have dreams of being left alone to run the store and hoards of people
pouring in to be served RIGHT NOW!

But, my father was a Republican because he was a business man and
because he (without the help of my mother he would have been nothing) ran a
business and could not identify with workers who wanted more and would get
more for working less. He was not helped by my identification with working
people and my spouting sentiments of class warfare. I was a socialist and a
world federalist in high school. If you listened and paid close attention
you found yourself buying into the notions about these things because these
were the avant garde ideas of the time. High school students during wartime
accepted liberalism as a matter of course. The debates were not with
conservative thinking but about isolationism and how to rebuild the world
after the war.

My father never talked with me about these things. He had a heart
condition and napped every afternoon. I can remember him exercising and
reading the newspaper but we never talked much. I hope my children remember
a lot more about me.

Carol's Evaluation: out of 10.