Yesterday, I got a letter from Senator John McCain... Not the family Christmas letter I usually get, where John waxes poetic about the meaning of Christmas, especially the Christmases he spent in that Viet Cong prison camp... No, this letter was John's impassioned plea for my help in fighting global warming... It hit me, aside from the times I sent John a birthday card, this was the first time John Wayne McCain had talked about the environment with me... Talk about shell shocked . . . I felt like I had just left Saigon in 1973, as I read what..John wrote about the desolate, Waterworld-esque future that awaits us if global warming goes unchecked.
All that thinking made me remember my days in high school, where I would have affectionately been known as a causehead..... I was the founder of an environmental action club (hey, it was 1990 and the 20th Anniversary of Earth Day - I was hip with the timing too)... We did everything from saving a swamp behind our school to instituting a paper recycling program in our school to ridding the cafeteria of styrofoam... I mean, I took global warming, landfills, endangered species, oil dependence, and toxic chemicals very seriously.
And yes, I worked at the PADS shelter in my town, a shelter for homeless families and battered women... I didn't have any hang ups about getting dirty or any of that... It was just what we did as part of my church, so I did it... I had no desire for accolades or any of that - although we did get in the paper sometimes, which meant more donations for PADS... Cool?.. I thought so.
But there was one time in high school that I joined a cause I had no interest in... I joined the club because I was in love with a girl... This girl was into Amnesty International and she wanted to start a club at our high school... Sadly, she didn't have nearly enough members, so I offered my environmental club members, which gave her the numbers she needed... At 17, I could give a rat's ass about political prisoners in Papau New Guinea or genocide in Botswana... I did give a rat's ass about this girl... I was so hot for her that if she told me that there was oppression in Siberia, I would have gone to yell at someone... All I wanted was a kiss (which, for the record, I got months later at the Winter Wonderland dance)... So for months, I learned about the evils that governments do to people who speak out... And I didn't care... I was mesmorized by a blonde teenage girl with beautiful looks, nice breasts, and blue eyes.
What does this have to do with global warming?.. Does this mean I have a thing for John McCain?.. Well, I was just thinking about how much idealism I had at 17... And no, I admire Senator McCain because he speaks his mind, but he'll never compare to my Amnesty girl from 16 years ago... How bout that?
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